In the movie “Tokyo!”, the first story is called “Interior Design”, where a girl felt so pressurised of not having found her vocation in life in seemingly purposefully bustling Tokyo, that something bizarre happens… She starts to morph into a an ordinary-looking household chair. Nope – not even an armchair – just a plain wooden chair. Naturally, she is apalled at first… before she realised she could change back at will. As a chair, she stood by a walkway one night, and was picked up by a guy, who sat on her at home.
She finds herself strangely at ease with this. It is as if she found her purpose in life – to be someone (or rather, something) genuinely useful. During daytime, when the guy wasn’t in, she would secretly do whatever she wished. (Can’t remember if she helped to tidy the house.) She was probably content with this as she was relatively simple-minded, with no great ambitions for anything else. In this way, she goes against the grain of the rest of the city. It kinds of forces us to think – Is she too simple, or are we urbanites just way too complicated? What is the Middle Way to live purposefully – without excess tension or slackness?