My take on apartments with fixed-in furniture OR When the 'ergon' of objects interferes with the 'telos' of humans
user profile
Sadhika Pant
 March 14 2023
more_horiz

    I like to sit on the floor and eat. Or draw. Or read. Sometimes, I use a chattai (a mat made of jute or other grass). Other times, the floor is vast and cold, and there is no one way to sit on it. Better still, if it is made of stone. With the mosaic-like pattern that reminds of home. I like to sit on the stairs too. Especially ones that open out into a courtyard or backyard, and have patches of sun falling on them.


    What I do not like is apartments with beds and cupboards and tv-stands fixed into the walls. Rooms that look like posh hotel rooms and not like places for human beings. Rooms that tell you where to sit, sleep and walk. A human being can’t just fit into whatever place is left over after the furniture has been arranged and fixed. Am I a business suit to be hung up on coat hangers and be carefully hung in the wardrobe every day at 5? It sounds a matter of frivolity, and perhaps it is. But must our every opinion be on the big matters of the world? (For a more erudite mob, I’ll entertain a slightly more philosophical interpretation later.)


    Furniture in homes should be moved around every other month to bring in some freshness. And homes should be designed so that your baby can crawl around, your dog can find a place to sit without being in someone’s way and you have space enough to grow potted tulsi and curry leaf plants, dry clothes in the open, and dry achaar (pickles) in the sun, without cramping up your balcony. Double beds should be placed in a corner of the room, between two adjacent walls; not with a thin strip of floor on each bed-side, making it less efficient to clean and leaving more options open for knee-bumping.


    Needless to say, it is important to keep a home clean. But going a step further, it is also important to decorate your home. When you put time and effort into something, you love it more. And it makes you want to come back home after a long day at work. And for god’s sake, let the kids draw on the walls sometimes. You want your home to be lived in. Creativity and curiosity is about making a mess. Having space to play. How do you write or paint if the blocks of wood in your house tell you how to sit and move?


    And now, as promised, the philosophical tangent: Do you believe the function of an object is built into it? Or do we, conscious and free-will exercising humans decide the function we want to perform with it? For instance, a hammer might be used to achieve a variety of endeavours (some delightful memories of Wile E. Coyote cartoons come to mind) but most often, the tool is still used to drive in nails or smash up old locks on rotting treasure chests. Unless of course, it belongs to a certain Norse god.


    Personally, I wouldn’t go so far as to say that we don’t have free will. That would be mighty pessimistic of me, and truth be told, I’m too proud for that sort of outlook. But I also wouldn’t say that we have free will in absolution. It’s like a chessboard: at a given moment, the knight may have 3 or 4 possible moves, but he moves in the same L-fashion every time. So we have free will, but in a context of determinism. A gun lying on your neighbour’s desk doesn’t force you to shoot him, or yourself for that matter, heh! And of course, like the erstwhile hammer, it can be used for a range of activities. But would you not say that its presence, or rather, its accessibility, does suggest a sinister (but suddenly more real) possible course of action? Would you not say that your free-will is somewhat nudged into a particular direction? It is for this reason that proponents of gun control say that legalisation of gun ownership amounts to legalisation of vice.


    Coming back to my apartment, I see the furniture, too, throwing random suggestions at me. And if it is all fixed, it has even more say over my house than it should. Aren't the walls restrictive enough, without the furniture siding with them? And it doesn’t help that I’ve given all my furniture and electrical appliances names.


    ergon telos aristotle philosophy creativity free will determinism
    Filter By: