COMMITMENTS : THE HUMAN CONDITION : The Rolling Stones : Some people never let moss grow under their feet. What’s the lure--a new start or an easy escape?

There are two kinds of people in this world: Movers and shakers.

Everyone knows a few movers--the folks who can’t settle in an apartment or house. We’re talking serial offenders here. For a mover, the other side of town is always greener.

A shaker, on the other hand, develops nervous tics and quaking hands whenever mover friends start scanning the classifieds.

Call movers the floating debris of a restless generation. Call them the lost children of Romany, with strains of Gypsy blood. Be afraid to call them back.

You can tell which category you fall into by whether you return the phone messages that start like this: “Hi. I know we haven’t talked in awhile, but I’m having this moving party on Saturday. It should be really fun. Do you still have that truck?”

Movers return the call, if they aren’t switching habitats themselves that weekend, knowing that they will need the same help someday. Shakers go looking for that note from their chiropractor.

Now, some say moving is a sport of the young. Age, possessions and contentedness slow us down. But even the young wonder sometimes--as they pack boxes, lug refrigerators, sign leases for apartments just blocks away-- why are we compelled to move?

It’s the adventure of finding new homes, movers say, discovering the unique qualities of a different neighborhood.

On the other hand, those adventurers may have a problem maintaining interpersonal relationships, experts say.

“People move as a way to clean up and clean out their lives, and that includes cleaning out the emotional shelves,” says Barbara Cadow, an adjunct professor of psychology at USC who also sees plenty of restless patients in her private Westside practice.

“But it’s also a way to avoid interpersonal relationships. Every time you move, you lose people--like all your old neighbors. So moving gives people an excuse not to work out their interpersonal problems.”

For others, the reasons are simpler.

Denise Druiff looks back fondly on the days when she and her husband were more footloose. They now have a 4-year-old daughter and 5-year-old mortgage in Huntington Beach, but there was a day when they moved simply because mold was building up in the closets.

“It was a rush--just the idea of throwing everything up in the air and starting over,” Druiff says.

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Cleanliness is a draw for some repeat movers. Frequently, your home is never as clean as when you first moved in--when professionals had just been there with paint and stiff brushes, scrubbing in the corners.

Anyone who has lived in a place for more than five years knows about the strange accumulation of . . . things . . . that comes with stability. Except for the brave few who execute spring cleaning with a vengeance, most everyone has stacks of paper, old toys and mementos, a collection of jars and lidless Tupperware lurking in cupboards and closets.

“I don’t want to move because I don’t want to see all the stuff I’ve got stored away,” Cadow says.

To move, she says, is to steam-clean both our souls and our stuff.

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Looking through history, we can easily spot a nomadic strain in just about every culture.

From the tribes who crossed the Bering Strait land bridge into this continent, to traders bringing noodles from China to Italy, the movers have been a source of cultural regeneration. They bring foreign perspectives to homebound citizens. They offer new ideas, fresh energy.

They give a pain in the lower back to friends and family.

In modern society, the nomadic subculture really began, Cadow says, after World War II.

“As corporations expanded, they moved workers all over the country,” she says. “Nobody thought about what dislocation did to families--executives, especially, were expected to tough it out.”

By the 1950s, the system of extended families, born on the farm, was rapidly dissolving. Without roots, there was little reason to remain in one place.

Moving, even across town, became socially accepted. Some people got hooked.

Zayra Cabot, a 32-year-old assistant to a television producer, was one of those for whom moving became a kind of drug.

After leaving Cleveland, she lived 10 months in Tucson, a year in Phoenix and then came to Los Angeles. And for four years, she moved about every six months. There was an apartment and two guest houses in Hollywood, then the San Fernando Valley, Glendale, back to the Valley . . . she gets lost reciting the list.

“I got to the point that every six months, a clock went off in my body or my mind and I would be in that moving mode,” Cabot says.

Cabot relates this with a kind of glee, remembering her glorious rootlessness. But when confronted with Cadow’s analysis of frequent movers--an inability to connect with others or resolve interpersonal conflicts--her mood plummets.

“Well, maybe I was running away,” Cabot acknowledges. She might have been trying to shake Cleveland (understandable) and an old boyfriend, she says. He made the first few moves with Cabot, but the hopscotching she did without him--well, she was probably still running from the memory, she says.

Cabot has lived in the same place for three years now and figures she will stay. But she did have to fight the urge, 2 1/2 years ago, to scan the classifieds for new rental listings.

“Ever since I’ve been where I am. I feel more stable,” Cabot says. “Besides, I’ve found out that if you’re filling out applications, it doesn’t look good if you’re moving every six months.”

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Cadow advises patients who have trouble settling down to create a sense of home wherever they live. Paint the rooms a new color, buy things you like, invite friends over, she tells them.

The idea is that if you can embrace your home, you might be able to throw your arms around a few people and forge lasting relationships.

But after years spent helping the rootless souls who skip from one home to another, Cadow is willing to admit that there are some who forgo stability but aren’t necessarily in need of extensive therapy.

“Some people just need more stimulation,” Cadow says. “It’s hard for them to feel content.”

Like a dog walking circles over its bed before lying down, movers need to tread over the landscape, try different positions and neighborhoods, before getting comfortable.

Now that Druiff has settled down in Huntington Beach, she looks back on her moving days as a search for the right nest.

“I guess you keep moving until you find the right place--or moving wears you out,” she says. “Then you make do with the nest you’ve got.”