Using Systems Theory to explain why Feng Shui works
a letter to self
Epistemic status: this went through my head this morning as I got up and thought “wow, I really need to sort this mess”. (Also a love letter to systems theory, kinda.)
The human body is often thought of as a (biological) system. But where does the system end? The skin? To be clear, I’m looking for the “most useful” answer, not the “most correct” one, whatever “correct answer” would mean in this context. “The skin, more or less” probably is adequate in most cases. But for some health issues, whether or not you include the bacteria on the skin is crucial to the outcome of your analysis. If you’re interpreting a legal code, you might need to decide if or when hair counts1. If you’re a surgeon wanting to avoid giving your patient an infection, or a serial killer not wanting to leave DNA traces, the dead skin cells falling off of the body might be worthy of thought.
I once read that for the inhabitants of space systems, the air around the body is usefully thought of as part of the “human body system”. That’s because, without gravity, it’s irrelevant that CO₂ is heavier than O₂ . The exhaled air will just be re-inhaled until there’s too much CO₂, unless you do something about it.
That’s biological. In the Navy, I realised that a similar thing is true socially.
Specifically, I noticed that whether or not my bed23 is wrinkle-free is equivalent to whether or not my uniform is wrinkle-free. For life in an extremely cramped space, both were integral parts of “how I present myself to the world”, a factor influencing whether others think of me as orderly or messy, etc.
In a less cramped space, this is still relevant, because if my current temporary mess becomes permanent, it becomes part of my self-presentation that “uh, sorry, I can’t invite you to my dorm room right now, I’m embarrassed by the mess”.
Anyhow, feng shui. Or rather, the book Clear Your Clutter with Feng Shui by Karen Kingston. I know, first and second hand, that it works. So, when I woke up this morning, I thought “I wonder where that book has gotten to? I should re-read it.” Yes, I appreciate the irony.
So why does it work? First, the health reasons. Semi-seriously, I’m thinking of spaces I spend a lot of time in as the habitat in which I would like a homo sapiens to thrive. Clearly, some things are more ideal than others (avoid asbestos). Okay, mould is obvious, but what about dust, and things that gather dust? I know from experience that too much dust will give me an allergy, as tested formally by a doctor, and that it will go away once the dust has gone. So, cobwebs and tapestries that gather dust are out. What about sources of (blue) light in the evening, and all those small lights on devices, etc? Seems like they might throw off circadian rhythm. And so on. I wish I had an exhaustive list, but there probably isn’t one. Unfuck Your Habitat is cool, though.
(I don’t need to believe that there is literal energy flowing through your rooms and getting stale in my corners to notice that doing what Karen Kingston says results in me clearing the cobwebs from my corners and the dust off my tapestry.)
Karen Kingston’s book has a diagram about which areas of life correspond to which corner of the room or house. I have no idea how one might decide that the center of one’s house corresponds to relationships and the top left corner, as oriented from the front door, to health (or whatever the correspondences are. Like I said, I lost the book, so I can’t check), but it’s a useful exercise to pick one area of life and think about how your environment is currently helping or hindering you with it. And the diagram is fractal. You can (and are supposed to, IIRC) apply it at the level of the property, house, rooms, even closets etc. It’s not that likely that you’ll miss something because it happens to be in the wrong quadrant.
Next, the category “frequent annoyances”. Forgive me for writing this paragraph to remind myself of the obvious. Yes, sure, I’ll deal with That Thing soon, let me just place it Over There so I don’t forget about it while it’s out of sight, oh and that Pile of Paper too, I’ll just put it on my desk so I’m reminded of it the Next Time I sit down to work….
… except now I have to navigate around That Thing every time I want to reach what’s behind it. A problem that will be solved if I organise the space such that “the energy can flow freely”. And if That Thing has acquired an ugh field, my subconscious is trying to censor it whenever my sight falls on it. When I tell myself I’ll just “tidy up a bit”, it might not even enter my awareness. If I try to visualise “flows of energy”, it will.
(Does anyone have tips/advice/links/… for getting better at noticing/dealing with ugh fields? I mean something like this)
Rephrasing this more broadly, things hold memories. Not just in this sense, but also in the sense of Getting Things Done.
If the stuff around me isn’t how it should be, then for almost any given value of “should be”, when I encounter it I will be forced to either Deal With It or Not Deal With It, and what I’m always tempted to forget is that they both take energy. If I’m not dealing with it, I’ll still experience a response of ohmygodthatthingineedto-. It will probably not even enter my conscious awareness, but it will be there. And some amount of mental energy will have been expended on slamming a mental lid on the thought before it can escape.
Karen Kingston’s book has multiple stories of people staying up all night to clean and declutter and then going to work the next morning, feeling energised. I thought that was strange. Then it happened to me. (Sending overdue emails works, too.) I suspect it’s at least partially explained by freeing up the mental energy tied up in Not Noticing Things and Not Dealing With Things.
Also, how easy is it to actually do things, given the way desk/kitchen/bathroom sink/workbench/… are set up? I’m aware of the point of performance principle (keeping tools where they are used, organised by task if doing so makes sense) but there are probably other low-hanging fruit I could try to pick.
Our environment stores information. About our routines, about the things we have to do, about the things we value. (I’m not aware of anyone ever advising in seriousness to put up artwork or decoration if you don’t believe in the values they remind you of.4)
It’s funny, a book about increasing your productivity for office work and a book about feng shui tell you to do almost the exact same thing. And it’s kinda the same as if you think about your living space as an ecosystem (habitat) that you, a biological organism, would like to thrive in.
Added While Editing: I missed the most obvious example. Here's Jordan Peterson saying kinda the same thing too. (Obviously, all three have way more to say than that.)
In the jurisdiction I grew up, I’m like 95% sure it does. As in, if someone grabs my braid and cuts it off, I can sue them for battery.
If this text were in German, I wouldn’t say “mein Bett machen”, I’d say “meinen Bock bauen”. But I have no idea what the English equivalent is. “Bunk”?
I’m pointing this out because the first time I obliviously ran into this issue, the reaction I got wasn’t “probably a foreigner”, it was “seems like stolen valor”. Luckily the situation was (afaik) resolved to everyone’s amusement.
I’m thinking of Jordan Peterson giving a tour of the Soviet artwork in his house. They seem to remind him of What To Do to Avoid Totalitarianism, not of communism as something to be aspired to or whatever.