CURIOSITY: aporia & ikea

Why do we consume in excess? When did we disconnect so profoundly from the world around us? How do we find our way back?

Saving sacred ground

How far humanity has come. Or, rather, how far removed has humanity become from its origins and purpose. Many of us are starkly severed from nature, living in urban settings, chasing concrete dreams — and yet we have a deep longing for the earth. Ancestral wisdom teaches us that nature and culture are connected; that we are, in fact, inseparable from the natural world. Similarly, queer semiotics (broadly an exploration of identity through the use of language and space) illustrates the unobstructed flow between self and other, person and place. Modernity’s intent is to control nature. In contrast, it’s proposed that humanity’s original state is actually “affluence without abundance”. How did this contradiction come to be?

Stand your ground

With the world largely being homebound since March of this year, many have been using this as an opportunity to change their space. It is, of course, the privileged who are safe at home (not stuck at home or scared at home) and equipped to develop their homes to meet their evolving needs.

Ikea, regarded as the “go-to store for the masses with empty rooms to fill and life-stages to adapt to”, was expected to profit from this trend but, instead, suffered as it temporarily closed stores and failed to adapt to ecommerce practices. However, it’s said to be taking a ‘post-pandemic gamble’ and will be opening 50 new stores in cities (particularly in the UK).

What makes this surprising is that: 1) online shopping — not in-store visits — is booming, and 2) people have migrated away from cities to the suburbs, the country, and to the coast. In addition to this, Ikea stores across the UK will be hosting an initiative in which customers can sell their used furniture back to Ikea for up to 50% of the original price. The intention is to “help customers take a stand against excessive consumption”.

Finding common ground

By now, you would’ve either watched or heard of My Octopus Teacher — a South African environmental documentary on Netflix. Some describe it as a man who falls in love with a mollusc who, in turn, helps him connect more deeply with his own humanity. Others read the film as the story of “a straight man who has a life-changing erotic relationship with a female octopus”.
Either way, the film presents its audience with an array of aporias: paradoxes, puzzles, contradictions, curiosities, doubts. Perhaps the core message is that, with death always looming, we seek to relate, connect, and communicate, finding ways to fix our broken fragments, fill the missing pieces, and nurture the purposeful parts.

What

So what

Now what

A pandemic holds up a mirror to society. It doesn’t break the system but rather reveals a broken one. In a similar way, nature reflects humanity. Social ills are echoed in the environment around us.

We’re incomplete in our humanity if we’re disconnected from the natural world. We require sustained balance in order to survive. It’s in hope, not despair, that we can connect, continue, and change.

“In a time of great divisiveness, nature is a great leveller,” says My Octopus Teacher filmmaker Craig Foster. We need to ground ourselves, anchor ourselves in the storm. Immerse yourself in the world around you; suspend your judgment, cynicism, and fear. Now’s the time to change the way things have always been done.

This article was published on Marklives