Written in 2016
The light in the room changes when there is less in it. It feels different.
William Morris said, "to have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful."
Most of us fail this test.
I look around. I see the "shit."
It is the drawer full of phone cables I no longer own. It is the free pens. The mugs with logos. The glittery bags saved for a bottle of wine that never gets gifted.
It is the bag of plastic bags. The pile of magazines that has turned back into a log.
We keep these things. We guard them.
Every object you own demands something from you. It takes up space. It demands to be cleaned. It asks to be insured or worried about.
It is a tax on your attention.
When you remove the things, you are left with space. Space is not just empty air. It is room to breathe.
But we are afraid of the space.
We buy things to fill the silence. We buy to cover up the cracks where the anxiety gets in. Advertising tells us the cracks can be filled with a new car or a shinier phone.
It is a lie. The objects are dead. They cannot love you back.
Future archaeologists will dig us up one day. They will sift through our mountains of yoghurt pots and DVD cases. They will wonder who we were.
They will see a civilisation that drowned in its own waste.
I am not suggesting you live in a cave. I am not suggesting you wear a loincloth.
I am suggesting you look at your shoes. Are they comfortable? Do they last? Then they are good.
Look at your tools. Do they work? Keep them.
But the rest?
Give it away. Give it to someone who has less.
Sell it.
Digitise the paper. Scan the photos and burn the boxes.
If something breaks, fix it. We have forgotten how to repair things. We just buy new ones. This cycle is breaking the world.
The hardest part is the destruction. Putting things in a bin feels like failure. It is. It is a failure of design and a failure of choice.
But once it is gone, do not replace it.
The most important step is not the cleaning. It is the refusal.
Don't buy the shit in the first place.