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I LOVE MY CLUTTER
Do you feel under pressure to declutter? Me too. Whether it’s my wife, or my younger son. They all seem to believe that my life would be better if I got rid of my clutter.
The fact is, I love my clutter. Given the chance, I’d get more: I’d de-declutter.
The whole thing started with Marie Kondo, but actually she’s on my side.
According to Ms Kondo, I should divide everything into what gives me joy and what doesn’t.
Apparently, she discovered this after having a nervous breakdown.
The problem is, getting other people to understand it, without having my own nervous breakdown.
Happy to love my clutter
The fact is, I’m totally happy with my cupboards filled with old computers and clothes I hardly ever wear (so are the moths, by the way, so I’m also making an important contribution to local insect life).
I have no problem with books, magazines, newspaper cuttings and scribbled notes, crammed onto shelves, piled on tables, stuffed into files, stacked on the floor. I know I’ll get round to them some time.
And the same goes for all the drawings, photos, CDs, vinyl albums, DVDs, VHS tapes (remember them?). Anything could become vital research material for a future book.
As for the boxes filled with what certain people refer to as “junk” – what they don’t know is that those 24 adaptors and guitar pedals, bags of audio and video cables, obsolete floppy discs, 13 amp plugs and all, are being kept for a purpose.
Disaster avoided
You just never know when they’ll be needed. Or rather, I do. It will be just days after I was persuaded to take them down to the recycling centre. Except, of course, I won’t.
To prove my point, only a week ago I used two pieces of clutter that could all too easily have been thrown away, if particular people had been listened to.
First, my thermometer needed a new battery. (Do you remember the good old days when thermometers only needed to sit there and the mercury worked forever?) The required battery was tiny and unusual – but a quick search in the cupboard in my study unearthed two of precisely the right size, left over from a sonic electronic key finder that got lost years ago.
So, I even have a back-up for when that replacement goes flat in a year’s time. (Though what I’ll do a year after that, I can’t imagine).
Joy in storage
Then a builder who’s working here needed something to lock up his ladder outside overnight. Did I have that combination-lock bicycle chain I bought and never used about five years ago? Did I heck? Right underneath the discarded DVD players.
That definitely gave me joy.
The trouble is that the same builder is about to remove part of a cupboard during the renovations. And it has already been said by a certain someone that this will be an “opportunity to throw some old stuff away.”
Not if I and Marie Kondo have anything to do with it.
Tell me what clutter you’re in love with? Or whose clutter you’d love to declutter if you had the chance?
4 Comments
October 10, 2021 at 12:39 pm
Very entertaining Charles, I’m certainly not going to let another notorious clutterer read it. Not sure we took quite the same message from Marie Kondo!
October 10, 2021 at 7:34 pm
Thanks, Maureen. Good luck with your clutterer, but you may have an uphill struggle!
Charles
October 22, 2021 at 8:25 pm
Very interesting post. I have three points I’d like to make in response, followed by a fourth which might undermine the first three.
1) If the things you are keeping could genuinely be useful in the future, and are being kept in a way that means they can be easily found at such a time, then what you have is not clutter. It is stored stuff. What I have found is that the more actual clutter I got rid of, the more I grew to ‘love’ all the stuff I still have stored around the house. This is an important tenet of Kondoism and shouldn’t be overlooked.
2) The amount of stuff that could genuinely be useful in the future is probably a lot smaller than you realise. For every ‘useful’ battery you are keeping, I am willing to bet you a 4-pack of non-alcoholic lager (which I’m trying to get rid of) that you have a stash of components for utterly obsolete and/or broken electronics that could realistically never be useful to anyone and which your poor hardworking sons will have to deal with one day.
3) With regards to all the stuff you’re keeping, I’d advise that it would be well worth your time reflecting (either by yourself or ideally with a therapist) on what it actually is that you are holding onto / afraid to let go of.
4) Do you have an old Dell laptop charging cable? We’re trying to get rid of some of old laptops but need charge so as to wipe them. The ones with the fat, round pin. If you were able to lend us one then I might be willing to take back everything I’ve said. Cheers
October 24, 2021 at 6:51 pm
Hi Adam
Thank you for your comment. I’m delighted you found the post interesting.
1) All my clutter could be genuinely useful one day. And the more I store, the more I grow to love it.
2) You’d be surprised how much is genuinely useful. Obsolete items are, by definition, the most useful, as nobody else has them. My sons will thank me when they realise that they are able to connect up equipment that they never thought they’d find a plug for again. Going through my stuff will also be good for their souls. I’m always bearing in mind their spiritual needs.
3) I often reflect on what I’m holding onto, every time I search for the one thing I was persuaded to throw away.
4) As it happens I have one Dell laptop charging cable and have thrown one away. Shall we try to guess which of the two you need?
Love