How space shapes us

I’m doing something for myself today. It’s time to shift my furniture, stow my crap, and knock down the cobwebs.

I had an epiphany when reading Thinking in Systems last year. The author Donella Meadows talks about human beings being ineffective leverage points. Basically, you can move different people in and out of a system and it won’t make much of a difference. Only if that person changes other parts of the system will they make a real difference.

I realized that even as individuals we live our day-to-day lives within a system, whether we shape it consciously or it just happens. I am a system of one. And I am also a terrible leverage point.

I saw a video the other day about how snowflakes form. Why are they six-sided and how do the six sides end up symmetrical? How does any one side know what the others are doing? The short answer: they don’t. What determines their shape are the specific conditions of humidity and temperature. The environment determines the shape.

A few months back I brought a giant desk into my apartment. Because of this I had to move a smaller desk away from the window. I used to write at that window. My writing space was clean and uncluttered.

I brought in this enormous desk and it changed my environment in some subtle way I can’t quite quantify. It invites clutter. And even when the surfaces are clear, I don’t enjoy sitting in my chair writing nearly as much as when I had a little desk in front of the window.

My project for the end of this week is to roll back time. Remove the desk and bring back the previous configuration.