Homes and Humans

“The place where a person or animal dwells”

- Home. Noun

Above is the Oxford English Dictionary definition of the word home. However to most of us, home
means so much more than the physical space we inhabit. Anyone who has ever moved house will know the feeling of when a space transitions from being just a collection of rooms to our home, and visa versa when our previous home loses that status.

There are so many factors which contribute to how we relate to our environment, and in this post I will explore some of the reasons that our relationship with our home is particularly complex.

One of the key factors in feeling at home, in my opinion, is personalisation. Putting our own mark on a space can help us to feel ownership and belonging, but our choice of how we do this runs much deeper than simply aesthetics or taste.

Below is a quote from philosophy writer Alain De Botton where he describes the way we can use our physical environment to reflect the somewhat intangible nature of our inner selves.

“We look to our buildings to hold us, like a kind of psychological mould, to a helpful vision of ourselves. We arrange around us material forms which communicate to us what we need – but are at constant risk of forgetting we need – within.” - Alain De Botton

When we make decisions about how we would like our homes to look, we are really deciding what kind of values we want to embody through our choices.

We are often required to play certain roles in our daily lives, whether it is remaining professional at work, tolerating fellow commuters on the train or road, or compromising in many small ways in order to be a considerate part of society. Our homes, however, are a place just for us, where we can be our true selves.

Imagine two very different approaches to how a sitting room could look:
The first, with mismatched sofas covered with homemade blankets, warm lamp lighting, and family photos on the wall might represent comfort, hospitality, a slow paced countryside lifestyle, the importance of handcrafting.
The second, with sleek angular furniture, concrete floor tiles and concealed accent lighting might represent a functional "no frills" approach, with cutting edge technology and precision in functionality.

It is likely that if the inhabitants of these spaces were to swap, they would not feel at ease, and it is this element of choice which I believe to be key.

This use of our homes as a reflection of our values is also why there can be such fallings out between couples making decisions on decoration in their homes. The real issue under discussion isn't actually which colour to paint the kitchen, it is in fact what values we want to embody, and in turn present to our visitors.
The home is such a deeply personal place for many of us that (particularly for us introverts) we can feel exposed when inviting others to visit. To me, this is the strongest indicator that our homes are a reflection of our inner selves, and that inviting somebody into your home is very much like exposing your innermost self.

Just as we have the ability to alter our surroundings, our environment can also have a profound effect on how we feel inside.

“In a hotel room strangled by three motorways, or in a wasteland of run-down tower blocks, our optimism and sense of purpose are liable to drain away. We may start to forget that we ever had ambitions or reasons to feel spirited and hopeful.” - Alain De Botton

Most of us can think of various spaces where we notice this effect. We might feel positive and relaxed in a cosy cafe, sitting in a big squashy armchair in the dim and warm lighting, watching the world pass by outside the window with the smell of coffee and gentle chatter of other customers washing over us.
On the other hand we are likely to feel restless in a station waiting room, squashed on to a crowded metal bench, a cold breeze entering every time somebody opens the door, bright tube lighting overhead, and jarring yet unintelligible announcements blasting out periodically.

I couldn't write on this subject without mentioning Marie Kondo who, in a bizarre time leap, actually has a very similar approach to Socrates when speaking about clutter.
Both describe how disordered homes can lead to disordered minds. I have linked below a great article where Yung In Chae and Johanna Hanink of the New York Times describes the similarities between the KonMarie Method and the dialogues of Socrates, recorded by his student Xenophon in Oeconomicus.
Kondo and Socrates both focus on order and functionality, which I think is a really good base level to work to before we start to personalise our homes. First of all we must be able to comfortably use the space we have, easily being able to find and use our possessions.

Most people visiting here will be familiar with Marie Kondo's work so I won't go into detail, but a brief summary is that we should only keep items in our house which “spark joy” for us. This can be used to describe items we love for their beauty or function, or memories attached to them. If an item does not spark joy, Kondo says, we should thank it for it's service and throw it away.

“True wealth exists only in the form of possessions that are beneficial to their owner.” - Socrates

This sounds very much like the ancient Greek version of objects "sparking joy".

Kondo's next step following de-cluttering is to make sure everything has its own place to be stored which is visible and easily accessible, so that you are never looking for space to put something away, it can just be easily placed back in the gap where it came from.

When considering decluttering, however, we are really approaching the problem in retrospect. The ultimate aim has to be to reduce consumption so that we don't get to the point of being over cluttered in the first place.

‘Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful’. - William Morris

Designer William Morris was a great believer in this way of thinking. Morris believed in traditional values of hand made items, and was dismayed by the rise of poorly designed mass produced items which came about with industrialisation. Morris believed that there is great honour and satisfaction in physical work and skill, and that objects hold much more value when the user is aware of the skill and labour which went into making them.
Morris's mentor John Ruskin spoke of the importance of regulating our desire for wealth and possessions, saying:

"Some treasures are heavy with human tears," - John Ruskin

I think this is particularly relevant today in regards to the prevalence of low cost items which often take advantage of under-paid labour and poor working conditions.

Morris believed that the key to improving our habits of consumption is for us as consumers to learn the value of craftsmanship and labour, and to buy good quality and long lasting items sparingly. Remember that Morris was living in the in the Victorian era where mass consumption and throw-away culture was nothing like it is today, but even then he could see the way industrialisation was heading.

The unfortunate outcome of Morris's business is that the cost of fairly paid craftspeople and good quality materials meant that his products were only available to the wealthy. Unfortunately the human desire for cheaper mass produced products was too strong for him to overwrite at that time.
I wonder if the added motivation of environmental concerns in our modern world might make his ideas even more powerful than they were at the time.

I would like to sum up with a quick sentence showing how we can form better relationships with our homes from each of the key figures I have quoted above.

Alain DeBotton – Our homes reflect our inner selves.
Socrates – Useless objects hold no value.
Marie Kondo – Discard items which you don't love, and give everything its own place.
William Morris – Buy less, buy better quality, and appreciate the process which goes into the making of items.

Many of us do not have control over the architecture of our homes, but I believe that through small interventions we can transform our homes into spaces which reflect our inner selves, encourage peace of mind, and as a result improve our wellbeing.

References:
https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/features/alain-de-botton-the-idea-of-home-841643.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/22/opinion/marie-kondo-socrates.html
https://www.onekingslane.com/live-love-home/marie-kondo-book-declutter/
https://www.vox.com/culture/2019/1/11/18175683/marie-kondo-tidying-up-netflix-life-changing-magic-konmari-explained
https://www.talkingaboutorganizations.com/e37/
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2018/dec/30/how-to-get-better-at-decluttering-throwing-things-out-gives-you-time-to-look-after-yourself
https://www.theschooloflife.com/thebookoflife/the-great-philosophers-william-morris/
https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/jonathanjonesblog/2016/mar/24/william-morris-google-doodle-socialist
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2011/nov/06/john-ruskin-dehumanising-power-capitalism