Abstract Kondoism

Cushions work via a substance-level interplay of positive and negative space. Fibrous positive space exists in concert with negative space around it, so that force applied upon the overall body can be distributed and absorbed. The fibers themselves are partially empty as well, being of light and pliable materials with low density, such as textiles or foam or feathers. The image of the ideal cushion is conjured in the form of clouds, as they appear from the ground, soft and almost liquid bodies of absorption of all “hardness” of weight and force. To the body, this strategic negative space allows for a material which absorbs weight and force brought by the unclean (weighted) human, allowing for relaxation and stillness.

The material-level interplay is done through harmony between negative and positive space, something well documented in Kondo’s account of cleanliness. The focus of her cleaning is to create harmony, through the principle of “sparkjoy”, which goes over each piece present and determines one by one if it is part of the harmony being worked towards.

The ultimate end in this is the state of the cushion, all things being in perfect order to produce a system capable of absorbing and cushioning the weighted body. Kondo recognizes the ideal state of the environment as being, like the cushion, a harmonious single object, a “machine for living” in Le Corbusier’s term. Allegations of fascism abound against Le Corbusier for his supposed fascism, which are in fact, directly on point. Le Corbusier recognized as Kondo did, that the ideal living space is a singular machine and that this machine is only made singular by a destructive cleansing, a purifying of the space to all except that which “sparks joy”.

Le Corbusier is railed against as Kondo was when she recommended that perhaps the hypertrophied libraries of unread and collected junk are not so vital as believed to be, that the fetishes of “high level” consumption, are to be purged. As comfort only occurs through purifying, purity has its greatest enemy in hypertrophic life, which is defended by the forces of hypertrophy. In contemporary society, the force of hypertrophy is extremes of production and consumption, symbolized through “soy”, though perhaps more accurately symbolized through “sugar”. As documented by Mencius Moldbugman on Twitter, the shelves of these people are often overgrown, moreso collections of products that libraries, series and color-sorted hardbacks read once and forgotten, with shallow prose at 20 pt font retelling the same stories again and again.

As minimalists have been noticing subtly, consumption is a false end. Consumption and production are engines of hypertrophic growth of excess, more, far beyond what could be a unified harmony. The praxis of moving towards comfort is a praxis of purifying and cleansing, stripping the machine-for-living of all except its singular harmony, thus creating an ideal place of rest.

This “rest” is revealed through the phrase “machine for living”. The “rest” in question is a state of peace and contentment brought about by perfection of the harmony. Harmony, the music BwO moving through patterns of writing, the qi flow moving in one harmony. Such is the art of Feng Shui, which dictates the forms which the KonMari method must be deployed to seek after. The home is a place of peace through purity, through all things being settled, all flows kept in a single balance.