Right? My five years of back tax records, and the file of receipts from various vets for my cats’ visits, and the big bin of tools and hardware, and all the cleaning products under the sink, piss me off, but if I ever need them, I’ll be hella glad to have them. I don’t feel any particular joy about my rather worn bath towels, but they still dry me after a shower and don’t look overly ratty, so I can’t justify moving them along to the “donate to animal shelter” pile. The 10 identical pairs of black socks in my drawer don’t make me joyful but they do the job inside my boots, same as my 20 pairs of black underwear do for my bum.
A lot of adult life is unfortunate mundane bullshit and living in a magazine shoot isn’t really compatible with that.
I think the trick is keeping the collection small enough that you can still find rarely used things when you need them. Clutter bothers me, but it’s worse when I need something, I know I’ve got it, but can’t think where it might be among all the junk. Often the only way to find the item is to buy a replacement.
My wife won’t let me wear socks with sandals, so nobody sees the socks anyway. I won’t say I just pick the first two, but I do take a glance in the drawer, trust a brief intuition, and match or not, I know that I’ve done my best, or at least I’ve given the problem the due diligence it warrants. Truth be told, my sock drawer is unpaired because I don’t have the heart to throw a good sock in the trash when its partner succumbs or absconds.
I’ve been to many homes in Japan. I can honestly say I haven’t seen a single one that wasn’t MORE cluttered than the average American home. Sure I know extremes on both sides. I’m just saying on average. I always attributed it to the homes and apartments being so much smaller but it could just be my personal experience.
I see you do not yet know the transgressive joy of wearing geometrically similar but differently-coloured socks because you do not give 2 fucks about matching them properly, and all the rest of the seconds of your life that would have been spent doing that are now yours again.
Try it. If the difference in texture and provided warmth is not significant, your feet won’t even notice; last time I checked they tend to be somewhat color-blind.
And showing your middle toe to the society and its petty and suffocating not-only-apparel expectations feels quite liberating.
There’s a trick I learned back when I was wearing stockings (instead of nylons): buy at least two pairs of any color/style at a time. When the first one runs or gets lost, you’ve still got three. When the second one runs or gets lost, you’ve still got one full set.
My personal take is more pessimistic. My rule is: if I spend too much time trying to decide if an object is worth keeping, that time is stressful and ill spent, so I get rid of the object. This comes most into play with sentimental keepsakes… the second, third, or forth time I look at something and feel a need to decide to keep it or not means I’ve already been trying to decide way too long, so it goes. Every time I repeat this process for an individual possession it becomes clearer and clearer, allowing me to eventually get rid of things even if I have a strong irrational attachment to them. By watching how much angst I’m feeling by simultaneously wanting to keep and dump something I can identify unrewarding interactions. It’s not clutter I’m avoiding, it’s mental conflicts.
My relationship should be joyous, but it’s not the objects that determine this relationship, it’s my own feelings towards them. What I am judging is my own behavior, which is a lot more concrete than ‘aesthetics’, ‘future utility’, or ‘economic value’. Am I conflicted? Answerable. Is this pretty? Debatable.
It’s a simple rule that keeps me surrounded by things that give me pleasure, and removes unwanted friction. It does not help with a messy household, though!
