Decluttering

You know those pictures of modern kitchens that you find in the papers ? You know, where there is no washing up, no place to read, no sign of habitation at all ? The kitchens that look like a cross between an operating theatre and an archaeological dig  of 1000 years in the future ? The dig where they are scratching their heads trying to figure out why the place is so empty, and whatever did people do here ?

Or the living areas in the posh magazines where there is no comfort, no calorie of warmth, no sense of a life contained, no lost sock lurking under the sofa, where even the log burning stove looks as if it has been newly installed for maximum visual effect but nobody knew how to light it. The places where a bold slash of colour against starkly white walls passes for cosiness ?

Well, those places are the logical result of the decluttering agenda. They are the chilly apotheosis of decluttering, and I want no truck with it. 

There is plenty of clutter around here, and neither it nor I am at all apologetic.

Do you remember the Joni Mitchell song with the line:

Songs are like tattoos
You know I've been to sea before

Well my clutter is like tattoos, too. It is the wake of a life, the visible reminder of things I loved, lost, used. Things that shaped me, lifted my heart along the way, things that kept me sane when staying sane seemed unfeasible. Clutter is the massed souvenirs from the journey nobody makes twice. It may be no pristine or used, but the warmth of the experience remains in the embers.

Maybe the argument is that decluttering can help those who have to sort out your affairs when you die. But the idea that you can reduce sadness by improving administrative smoothness seems crackpot to me. And in any case, who really wants to play John the Baptist to their own demise ?

I want to live my life with 60 cluttered minutes in every vibrant hour, with all the tools and appurtenances to help me squeeze as much joy out of life before bedtime as I possibly can and unreasonably expect.

Decluttering seems to me to be briskly shallow as a concept. Who wants a life lived where Occam has dictated the terms ?

I don't.

Give me fascinating clutter any day. It tells a story as vividly fraught with interest as any tattoo.