CLUTTER: Keep or Chuck?

Don’t Own so Much Clutter
You’ll be Pleased to See Your House on Fire!

Wendell Berry

THIS WEEK I’ve been musing upon an article I read  months ago in Time Magazine that Americans now have more possessions than any society in history.  Some writer, and I only wish it were me, has minted a new word: ‘Stuffcation.’ What happens in America happens here.  Most of us are suffering from ‘stuffcation’  in some guise or other, depending upon age, sex and the size of our dwellings.

My father, never one for hoarding much in the way of possessions, considered the world could easily be divided into ‘keepers’ and ‘chuckers’.  He most definitely belonged to the latter group.   I thought I, too, was a fully paid up member, having moved house and country more times in my life than I care to calculate.  A move concentrates the mind like nothing else and it becomes almost second nature to rid yourself of seldom worn  clothes, decrepit bags, foot-pinching shoes, half used cosmetics and other assorted female paraphernalia.

My mantra has become to chuck is to liberate!  In fact, even when I’ve had spare attic space, I’d  interrogate myself mercilessly before anything is hauled up the swaying ladder. Christmas decorations, a couple of spare suitcases, and a box or two  I’m storing for my family.  That was definitely it.

But storage possibilities encourage stuffcation!  An interesting statistic from the States, that I noted was, according to Time,  there are now around 48,500 storage facilities across the country, with a revenue of some $24 billion dollars which puts the industry on a par with McDonalds or the GDP of a small country – Latvia for example!  We Brits seem a tad more circumspect, though a 2013 survey years ago indicated we have the largest total floor area of rentable space in Europe. Hmm.

A couple of recent shuffles through my scarf drawer, kitchen cupboards, book shelves, boxes of personal memorabilia  and half finished novels, plays and scripts gave me pause for thought.  It  soon stopped any judgemental notions I might be having on US citizens and their propensity for over-consumption. Maybe I needed to contact my inner minimalist and have a chat.

For a start why do I need so many scarves?

Especially when some have never been worn and others have seen neither daylight nor a chilly neck for years on end?  Why do I need to keep enough food in the house to feed at least five people for five days, notwithstanding there’s a village and a shop but a brisk walk or short car ride away?  Of course, it can be rationalised a little according to personal circumstances. Being a country dweller for much of my life,  it wasn’t daft to keep a well stocked cupboard and freezer if grocery shopping involved a ten mile car journey.  Besides, it taps into our primeval instincts of caring for our families – food on the table is a necessity, not a luxury.

Books are a heavy matter in every sense of the word! Why  do I need to hang  on to the Complete Book of Pruning when I’ve only ever opened it once in twenty-five years?  But sending  books to the charity shop or occasionally, even worse, to the recycling depot where, quite possibly. they end up anyway, can be rather like deleting a friend’s number from your phone or address book even though you haven’t been in contact for years.

The tie is emotional.  The  same sort of link applies to  tattered pictures of a much loved dog drawn by a friend’s  seven year old.  To say nothing of all the  birthday cards, drawings, photos that were never edited and the books and plays never finished.

But there’s another premise – it comes under the heading of,  ‘I might need it someday!’  I kept thinking about someone I knew, who faithfully transported across continents a totally moth eaten dinner suit that would have seemed out of place at a hobo’s ball. Upon arrival at his new home, he relegated it to hanging in a workshop along with a motley selection of other tattered garments.  Of this kind of behaviour, a  friend remarked, in typically succinct French fashion, ‘Mais, alors c’est une maladie.’

Maybe it’s a maladie we’re all affected with.  In a hamlet where I once lived, my neighbours had garages ceiling high with goods whose total auction value would have struggled to reach  a couple of hundred quid.  Outside, exposed to rain, sun and snow, stood a range of cars with a value running well into six figures.  Hanging on to  too much ‘stuff’ on the basis that, ‘Maybe we’ll need it at  some future date,’ even though we don’t need it now, nor have needed it much, if at all in the past, can bring about  serious stuffcation!

I have to confess I’ve occasionally chucked something with great glee, only to find, minutes later, that actually I did have a good use for it.  But I think we all have to knock down the barrier of future need and concentrate a bit more on present use.  In other words, Do we need it now?  Do we use it now?  Does just having it in our possession, be it scarf, book, tins of baked beans or an ancient picture album make us feel happier, cheerier and glad we’ve got it?

If the answer to the first  two questions is, ‘No’ then maybe it’s best to chuck.  But if that particular possession really does bring a smile, then why not make it a ‘keeper?’   Why, I wonder do we need to acquire so much in the first place? Perhaps deep down, we tend to hang on to material objects in order to provide a bulwark against our mortality.  In the end, all we can take on our final journey is the love we’ve given and received.  That doesn’t require space in a garage or an attic.

Keep chucking – it’s good for the soul!