The term “home base” is usually used in the context of a safe, known space. But, and I’m assuming here, it comes from the home base in baseball/softball.
I played one season of softball. So I’m no expert, but my experience is that home base can mean a variety of things, depending on where you are in the game:
For the player at-bat, it’s the starting point, where the game is most challenging and requires the most skill.
For the batting team, especially those out in the field, home base is the end point, the goal, the target where you score points. Playing is meaningless unless you cross home base.
For the pitcher, home base is both a target (to ideally get a strike) and a strategic distraction (a fake target). The goal is to use it as a reference point to cause the opposition to fail.
For the catcher, it’s kind of an irrelevant patch on the ground while pitching (just catch the ball regardless of where it is), and then one of the most important things to keep in mind during free play (where is it, and is anyone running towards it. Guarding home plate is key!).
“Home base” as it refers to our home, should align with the general usage of the term: a safe, known space. But for many people, it is more like one of the four different experiences above.
It might be the most challenging place in someone’s life, or the area where the most skill is required, because it isn’t safe for them there.
It might be the perceived goal, a target, where ownership is an aspirational thing, because someone’s been told that’s how they’ll be happy and successful.
Someone might not actually care about their home (or someone else’s) at all, because they’re using property as a means to an end, that requires someone else to lose.
Or perhaps, it’s just something someone doesn’t consciously think about, until it gets threatened, because having a home is an assumed constant in life.
Our experiences and relationships with “home base” are all different. Some are broken, and hurt us, or others.
Everyone deserves a home base that is safe and known.