I have recently read an interesting article entitled “Distorted furniture looks like a glitch”. It is about a hand-carved wooden piece of furniture by Italian designer Ferruccio Laviani and it really makes your eyes and your brain wobble. As a glitch is a malfunction, a fault that, especially in electronics, causes the bending of circuits, this piece of furniture is carved in such a way that instead of straight lines you see distorted stripes that make your eyes see sort of “sideways”. It is definitely intriguing, it makes you feel that you have to fix it. Looking at it reminded me of the old TV series “The Outer Limits”, where each episode was introduced by the injunction not to attempt to fix the apparent malfunction of the TV set because the distorted images represented, in a certain way, the essential idea behind the story.
The interesting words, here, are “malfunction”, “bending” and “distorted”. They all refer to the representation of something that should be, is supposed to be, is expected to be in a certain way but … it is not. The “correct” way is manipulated in such a manner that the image looks completely different from what the mind logically anticipated. Can we use this consideration to understand our life a little better? I believe we can. Let us start by examining the above mentioned interesting words.
First is “malfunction”, a term that is defined as a failure to function in a normal or satisfactory manner. Think for a moment about your life. Does it sometimes operate in a way that is not “normal”, i.e. that is not at all what you wanted and expected it to be? As a consequence, you are unhappy or dissatisfied with the results of your actions because you cannot understand the reason why things end up going wrong. Your TV set was working all right but suddenly, with no apparent reasons, it stops functioning properly. You had been performing a certain action for years with acceptable results and now, all of a sudden, the results drastically change. Your moody behavior is not willingly accepted any more by your spouse, your inflexibility is questioned by your children, your uptight demeanor is starting to be rejected by your colleagues, your friends show that they do not appreciate your provoking jokes any more. If you are smart, you might decide to question yourself instead of resenting the others, and detect the faults in your behavior that are causing the “malfunction” in your relationships.
Then we talked about “bending”, which means forcing something into a different shape. Is this what you tend to do when you demand that your friends or family do what you want them to do, without taking their wishes or opinions into consideration? Trying to get what one wants is a natural trait of the human nature and it is not particularly reproachable. It becomes such when the attempt to get it your way brings you to assume an overbearing, domineering attitude that is definitely unacceptable. It might have been accepted in the past, but it might very well be refused now.
Finally, “distorted”. While bending means to change the shape of an object into a different angle, to distort means to twist it completely out of shape. Here, in a way, there is no more shape at all. If you try to bend a person to do your will, you might use persuasion (although it is still a devious means) to reach your goal. But twisting out of shape can only signify that you wish to totally change the person or the situation so that they become someone or something else. As the artist molds a blob of clay to create a vase or a horse, thus do you attempt to fashion another into what you secretly long him or her to be.
If the Italian furniture designer’s woodwork is not only acceptable but admirable for its creativity, I don’t think that trying to bend anyone or anything is a good idea. Reality is varied and diversified enough, it offers you so many ways to achieve your goals that you should never feel the need to manipulate people and circumstances in order to have your dreams come true.
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