(BSpace)
The individual object however has its place where I look for it and find it, in so far as a place is assigned to it by someone. The place is thus already the result of human creation of order. The manner of assignation can again vary greatly in detail. Things are, to quote Heidegger, ‘as equipment essentially fitted up and installed, set up, and put to rights’. Thus there are very different forms of lying ready, keeping, and so on. I can put a book in order on the bookshelf for later use, or I can lay it on my desk ready for use in the near future. I can put my bicycle in the shed, store the potatoes in the cellar, keep provisions in the larder. There are various possibilities here which are connected with the temporal distinction between immediate use and use at a later time. And then there arises the further distinction that there must be not only places for laying objects ready for immediate use, but also spaces for storing them for later use: larders, stockrooms, warehouses, libraries, and so on.
But this order created by humans is continually, necessarily, lost through human activity, through ‘life’ itself, and then requires a specific effort to restore it. If, after making use of an object, I do not immediately return it to its place, but carelessly leave it lying where it was used, then it lies around ‘somewhere or other’, in some arbitrary place. This ‘lying around’ is, as Heidegger has observed, ‘must be distinguished in principle from just occurring at random in some spatial position’, hut, as a sign of disorder, it is a disturbance of my order and as such it is from the start related to my order. What is lying around will soon be in my way, that is, it is taking place away from other things, and hindering me in my movement. I must then make order again, that is, make space for myself by tidying up, or new ordering.