Clutter

Clutter

   Let's face it, many of us are surrounded with clutter (and I'm not talking to those of you who are spotless and organized).  Myself, I've whittled my books to just one bookcase, my clothes are what I consider minimal (easiest thing for me to discard) and my papers...well, let's skip over my many piles of papers.  All of this came to mind while debating the merits of Marie Kondo's best-seller (2 million copies sold, so far), The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up.  And she's rather brutal...

   Take books.  Her advice first of all is to gather every book in the house (this includes things such as cookbooks) and lay them out on the floor (so you get an idea of how many books you really have);  any books you've forgotten (say, a yearbook hidden in a box in the garage) goes right to the trash.  Her motto basically is, if you can't remember that you have it or where it is, then you don't want it.  Her second basic premise?  Everything that you pick up and say "one day," or "maybe I'll get to this" is in the trash.  Those "days" never come, never have and never will.  Do the same with clothes, then memorabilia (one entire section is on photos, even that box of grandma's photos).

   Where is gets interesting, however, is with papers, those piles and piles of papers.  Her advice?  "My basic principle for sorting papers is to throw them all away."  What???  Then she goes on down the list: credit card statements, old letter, manuals, old checkbooks ("used checkbooks are just that--used.  You're not going to look at them again, and even if you do, it won't increase the amount of money in the bank, so, really, get rid of them").  The average amount of papers her clients toss in one sitting?  Two large trash bags (the record for her was seeing 15 bags heading to the dump).

   Unsorted photos (not even counting those really buried by being stored in the computer or the cloud), filing cabinets holding who knows what, those clothes at the bottom still pristine with their labels...all have to go, she says.  Of course, the book got me thinking, me sitting comfortably surrounded by my papers.  Yes, I really should take her advice (rid yourself of the past so you can move on, becomes somewhat of a promised result, according to the author).  Hmmm, that Zen home looks pretty attractive...or does it?

   My wife always brings this up to me, for occasionally the clutter gets to be too much and she passively (okay, somewhat aggressively) mentions that should I suddenly pass away, who will be left to sort through and clean up the mess?  She will, of course.  And admittedly, it's puzzling at why I can't simply follow the book's advice and start filling the trash cans.  Yes, I have that box (two, actually) of old photos (and that's after purging them down from about five boxes some years ago).  And those boxes are...somewhere.  And the books, the ones I always wanted to read and somehow think they're so rare that if I toss it I'll regret it for the rest of my life, well, they're still there (thank heavens, even if they're readily available at my library and even at Amazon for under a buck).

   So what is it?  Is it indeed a matter of comfort, of being stuck in the past?  After all, news and articles all grow old rather quickly (you can see this simply by zooming through a weekly that is now two months old, making you realize how little of that information you really needed).  And clothes, well, how much clothes does a person need?  My "going out" wardrobe is great at collecting dust, while my tees and shorts and jeans are looking a bit too worn (luckily, I have more yet to be worn).

   Step back from this a day or two ago and here I was at a friend's funeral service, hearing all the testimonies and seeing all the enlarged photos and words of praise.  And for some reason, I thought that this was me; for before too long, that is what I will be reduced to, a few photos and a few friends and family members talking of a memory or two.  Then 30 minutes later, it will all be over, the photos will be moved to a counter somewhere, the people will all return to their lives, and me, well, I'll now be doing little more than adding to someone's clutter, another photo to be put into a box after a few months have passed.  And what will have happened to all those "valuable" books of mine and my piles of papers?   Likely, even existing as a broken series of molecules in space, I will be able to hear the cursings of my wife as she orders yet another dumpster...