You’re decluttering all wrong

What makes people miserable is not what’s in their homes but what’s in their heads. Representation pic

I tried for years to persuade my brother that there could be no justification for owning 12,000 books and magazines that he would almost certainly never read. That number is a guesstimate; it might have been 15,000 or even more. His collection was so large that he had erected bookshelves along the corners where the walls met the ceilings. The books were browned, musty, well-thumbed, many of them colonised by silverfish, but intact.

I urged him to review his collection, which included a wall full of National Geographic, Life, Esquire, Punch, Playboy and Wired, among others, and ask himself one question: What are the chances I will ever read this particular publication again?

I failed every time; collectors like him don't like such questions. Not only had he read every printed word he owned but he also carried a complete indexed catalogue in his head. Ask him when Tom Wolfe in an interview mentioned a riveting description of butter melting on toast and he'd fish out the exact Playboy issue, open on the right page.

When he passed away, in 2017, the bittersweet duty of disposing of his countless magazines and nearly 5,000 books fell to me. We finally found a bookshop that would accept all my brother's books and even create a special corner for him, named after him in memoriam.

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Today's minimalists might not have been very happy with the state of the house where my brother lived and died. Marie Kondo, queen of the decluttering empire, would also certainly have disapproved.
Kondo, Japanese, 38, and also known as KonMari, has written four books on getting rid of your life's junk which have sold millions of copies. If something doesn't "spark joy" in you, you should throw it away, she says. If it's a memento from a broken relationship or a sad memory, she insists, you should trash it.

Luckily for me, I turn my nose up at Marie Kondo and her empire. I also have some seriously offbeat views about decluttering and minimalism.

It doesn't need saying: you can't take it with you when you die. The less you have, the less you have to take care of. The happiest travellers are the ones who travel light. Learn to make do with less. Material clutter interferes with spiritual transcendence.

However, to throw away things you don't need, you first have to afford to buy things you don't need. To those unknown and untold crores of Indians living at the bottom of the barrel, unable to afford clutter in the first place, decluttering and minimalism are meaningless. They are mandatory minimalists, earning minimal incomes, finding joy in the little grains that come their way. They live as Marie Kondo preaches-wanting nothing more than to one day happily get a little missing clutter into their bleak lives.

Marie Kondo's decluttering is for a rather more elite crowd and it's about things you own. In an age of conspicuous material consumption by the newly rich, it should be no surprise that decluttering and minimalism are trending. However, what makes people miserable is not what's in their homes but what's in their heads.

I'm waiting for a new Marie Kondo to tell us how to declutter our minds and be more minimal in thought, deed and expression. Here are areas of complete mental clutter that could do with a small dusting-

-The social media posts that you mindlessly scroll through, liking and following.

-The food shots and selfies you have an opinion on and are willing to argue about.

-The unverified facts that clutter your mind and which you are willing to stuff other minds with.

-The ‘network' of instant ‘friendships' with people you've never seen and never will.

-The swamp of old and worn-out ideas and opinions that you still passionately defend.

-The number of pointless conversations you will have because you don't want to look ignorant or rude.

It's a long list and I was just getting warmed up there.

My mind is far from decluttered or minimal. I think too many thoughts that have no business being in my head. My answers to even simple questions have too many words, and my questions don't know where they should end. There are mornings when the same thoughts crowd and churn in my head, impossible to dismiss or silence.

Yet finding economy and simplicity in my thoughts, words and deeds is the only minimalism that makes sense to me today.

There's an old joke about a Scandinavian couple married for decades, who used to go for a daily walk, mostly in silence, since Scandinavians are not very talkative. On their 25th wedding anniversary, she said to him, with a hint of reproach, "Olaf-you never tell me you love me."

He pondered this for five minutes as they walked, and then said, "Astrid-remember the day we got married?"

She nodded.

"On that day, I told you I love you."

She nodded, smiling and remembering.

"So," said Olaf, "How many times do you want me to tell you the same thing?"

You can reach C Y Gopinath at cygopi@gmail.com
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The views expressed in this column are the individual's and don't represent those of the paper.