When I hear "sense of place", I think of placing myself where I want to discover something new; unravel a new feeling. But upon further thought, I imagined just how easily other methods of conceptualizing this definition come to mind, for example, you can place yourself where you want to mimic something. An individual who wants to embody what it means to be an artist would place themselves in events or areas of like-minded individuals to get a fundamental sense of what it is to be an artist.
Similarly, one can place themselves where they want to belong (this is similar to the above example) but requires a step further into identity - to elaborate: You can place yourself in a place you want to mimic, but fail to feel like you belong within the vibe being embodied in this location. Perhaps the goal of fitting in said place is stronger for one person versus another individual's mere curiosity of seeing if they can mimic a certain vibe for a short time and not necessarily identify entirely enough to feel a sense of belonging.
Another form of placing yourself in a location could be that of going where you want to be helped...you can feel a strange pull to a place where you perceive you can potentially grow; placing yourself in a location, in this case, feels like a must.
What these conceptualizations of "sense of place" have in common is a desire to be somewhere.
My main question with getting well-acquainted with "sense of place" is:
How does that desire manifest?
To partially and subjectively answer this question, I'd say the desire to be somewhere comes from our own Source of Identity.
We want to move towards anything that makes us who we want to be. Who we want to be is a conglomeration of what we know thus far. Perhaps engrained memories of happy times or curious feeling that light our brains up with passion, even more simply interesting feelings that draw us to warm or fuzzy feelings. Memories like these thus are tied to the familiar or our interests, meaning that what we know so far can come from what we like, we are literally being pulled towards the places that are very similar to our own personalities.
Maybe this is where the definition of sense of place is derived from.
To delve deeper, I would like to explore further questions in the near future, such as:
Do you know what places you spend more time in?
What are the major sense of place/location motifs in your life?