Has anyone every banged their leg on a table and got angry with the table? How about when constructing some IKEA furniture and getting pissed off because what you’re experiencing is not what the instructions suggest you should be? How about installing something on a computer and the procedure not proceeding as simply and immediately as you assumed it would? What is it that frustrates us about inanimate objects? Computers possibly less inanimate that tables, but the idea that something that cannot think for itself and just exists angers us is an interesting one. What is it that enrages us so much and why is it that animate objects like people or animals do not illicit such angry responses from accidental actions that may do mild harm or inconvenience despite the fact they’re to varying degrees conscious of their actions.
Perhaps we instinctively don’t want to do harm to living creatures because we recognise the life within them and the suffering our anger will bring. That may be true for some but certainly isn’t true for others. There are far too many examples of people taking our their anger on either their partners or pets for example. Maybe we know an inanimate object cannot fight back although it would be worth referencing partners and pets again here. Also I’m sure there are plenty of videos online of doors doing exactly that as they swing back and hit the aggressor in the face. What it may be then is an unconscious frustration with ourselves and our inability to not walk into tables, build confusing furniture or download software.
Anger is a funny thing when you break it down. That angry driver shouting at you because of some mild traffic faux pas you just committed may appear to be angry at you but there’s a good chance his real anger is linked to something else. The same when partners get annoyed at you for some little thing you’ve done and appear unreasonable with it, there’s a good chance something else is bothering them, be it with you or something else entirely unconnected in their life. With inanimate objects we have nobody to justify the error in the moment with as we’re the only one involved. We can lay blame in the direction of nobody except ourselves and this is very hard to accept, especially when usually everyone else is responsible for whatever it is that makes life an angry one.
We’re simply frustrated with ourselves then. Frustrated we cannot avoid IKEA or their tables. Frustrated then that we cannot do better or are not better at whatever it is that is enraging us so much. Why not use this frustration to get better, become an accomplished furniture constructor or be someone capable of not walking into the furniture once constructed. Perhaps then it’s about using this emotional response in a productive way and not allowing it to hold us back. A life constructed as opposed to one destructed.
Observations and Misunderstandings 