On "sparking joy"

A LOT has been written* about the new Marie-Kondo-based Netflix series. I don't have Netflix, so I haven't seen it, but I'm kind of familiar with the concept behind it: some influencer (apparently in this case, Kondo herself) shows up at people's houses, and tells them how to live their life, what they need to change in order to be happy.

(*Heh. Maybe some of those pieces need to be Kondoed).

And, I don't know. I mean, I totally get getting a consultant in if your stuff has gotten away from you, or if you're having to clear out the house of a relative who owned far more stuff than you do (I am kind of dreading the eventual downsizing/estating of my parents' stuff. When I am up there at less-busy times, I do try to help do some sorting and disposal, but I promise you: the 30+ years of geology journals stored in the garage? If I can't quickly find some location willing to take them - increasingly unlikely in these days of everything available through JSTOR and similar - they're getting either recycled or landfilled.

And yeah, I admit I worry a little about my own stuff. If I knew I were gonna shuffle off this mortal coil in advance of the exact date (like, I knew I had months left), I'd do my best to donate my unused craft supplies to either a school or some kind of self-help program where they could be used. And I'd arrange for my books to be sold and the proceeds support libraries, or, if any of my books were desirable for the library collections, have it absorb them. And friends of mine, if they wanted one of my Ponies or similar to remember me by, they'd be welcome to take one.

But. I have no plans for that event happening for *at least* 30 years, so I want to hang on to my stuff and enjoy it.

And I do have issues with the one-size-fits-all-ness of minimalism. It may be a great choice for some people, but....just like a lot of other "minimal" choices, sometimes the practitioners of it can be a little...smug. Smug in the "It worked for me so you need to do it to!" mindset of some of the more-extreme weightloss diets.

And I suppose, in a way, minimalism or Marie-Kondo-ing or whatever is a form of a diet, just, a diet for stuff instead of a diet for food. IDK. And yeah, I can sort of see how stuff is like food: I know at times I "buy my feelings" (what are blindbag toys but a sop to my "Today was a lousy day and I'm sad" feelings) just as at times I want to "eat my feelings." And I suppose in a way the whole willpower involved in dieting is the same as the willpower involved in not buying stuff you don't absolutely need....just as weight loss efforts (calorie restriction and exercise) are similar to purging stuff.

But the other thing is: for a lot of us, we don't have a lot of sources of comfort in this life. And that's one of the problems I have with the "live in a clean white box, only own one book at a time*, don't have anything not necessary for your daily use" mindset - it denies the fact that for some of us, for example, having "useless stuff" - whether it's the little group of china rabbits your grandmother collected and passed down to you, or 5,000 books, or a fancy teapot you rarely use - may provide some level of comfort against the hardness and coldness of the outside world. (And yes, I guess in Kondo-style, these things would be OK to keep, provided you cold prove they brought you enough "joy").

(*Yes, this is an exaggeration)

But as I've said before - and I know many others have written about - minimalism, where you only own what you need *in the immediate time* is a privileged position. If you ever lived in a position where it would be hard to afford, I don't know, twine or aluminum foil, or parts to repair something, you tend to be more prone to keep stuff. My parents are kids of WWII (rationing) and also my mom grew up in a family with not-much-money, and my dad grew up in a household where sometimes employment was shaky, and then, once he got older, his parents owned some cottages where there were ALWAYS repairs going on. So having jars of random nails and screws was a thing when I was growing up. And my mom STILL saves clean aluminum foil (like, what is put over the top of something and doesn't get the food on it) to reuse.

And in some ways - that's probably a more environmentally-friendly way of doing it.

And I also admit: living in a town where finding what I need is at times challenging, I often do hang on to stuff because I know it might be hard to buy another one without either a drive to Sherman or hunting around online (and waiting for it to arrive). I remember when I first moved here, you couldn't even get some pretty basic ingredients (e.g., hoisin sauce) locally, and you always had to plan "what might I possibly need in the next month*" when planning a trip to Sherman.

(*My first year here, prepping three classes from scratch and trying to get my dissertation published, I only got to Sherman once every month to six weeks. I wonder now how I managed to do all that work but I was nearly 20 years younger than I am now)

And so I do come from a background where you do stuff like have bits of twine in a drawer, or you have some extra canned goods ahead on the shelf (and probably more than you'd need for a day-or-two inability to get out on the roads during adverse weather)

But to me - and this may be, as I've said else where - "my stuff" - but a lot of the Marie Kondo type stuff feels to me like it has an element of, if not bullying, hectoring - the "Man, how do you LIVE this way?" directed at the person who has multiple junk drawers or seems slightly disorganized or seems to have "more" of a particular item than what the commenter thinks is quite cricket - and there's the unspoken "It worked for me so you should do it, too."

Most of the reactions I've seen are to Kondo's pressure for people to divest themselves of books. And yeah, I get that - people have FEELINGS about books. And for most book lovers, the idea of getting rid of books you've already read - especially if you liked them - feels like anathema. And so a lot of electrons have been spilled over this - Jaquandor has a post on it, where he takes the neutral stance that he doesn't particularly care what you do with your books. And suggesting that "sparks joy" is a pretty undefinable concept....

and it occurs to me, some of my revulsion with the whole Marie Kondo mindset may be tied to that phrase, and related to my own perfectionism. Because, what IS "sparks joy"? What is "joy"?  I may be expecting too much of "joy." Because I can look at my bookshelves and feel a certain contentment ("I have lots of interesting books") or maybe even something like hope ("Yes, someday I will have the time and brainspace to read Proust, or to read "Gödel, Escher, Bach")

But that's not *joy,* not as how I would define it. Maybe I expect too much? Maybe it's like my definition of "friendship" - I consider someone an 'acquaintance' unless they're someone I feel like I could count on to drive me to the hospital late at night if I needed to go to the ER, or who would help me move house, or who would hold my hair back when I had food poisoning and was throwing up...

But what struck me was the article Kelly linked to - from the Guardian, which is usually (in my mind) the Eeyore of newspapers (but sometimes, it's kind of entertaining to listen to Eeyore, if you don't let his attitude drag you down). Anyway, the author of the piece takes on the Kondo mindset about books (and allegedly, at one point, she had advocated tearing out the pages of books that you liked, and throwing the rest away, and honestly? Loose pages make a lot more mess than nicely bound-up-into-books pages - my work-office attests to this. 

But anyway, one pull quote

"We live in a frantic, goal-obsessed, myopic time. Everything undertaken has to have a purpose, outcome or a destination, or it’s invalid."

THIS, as the cool kids used to say (and still might, I don't know). That's one of my biggest things - fearing I'm "wasting the time I was given" when I do stuff that doesn't have a set purpose. Looking at the socks I am knitting and telling myself "You have too many pairs already and you don't wear them that much since you usually wear dresses with tights, why are you working on this" and the whole goal-obsessed thing, that gets SO MUCH in the way sometimes of just simple happiness. Of just doing stuff because it makes you happy.

Because for me "goal-obsessed" means stuff like the "You Should Be Writing" comment that one of the academic twitter feeds I follow posts (jokingly, I think) periodically. Or my knowledge that there's always something MORE work-related that I could be doing - more prep-work, more reading of background or current papers, more thinking about research - it could occupy my life 24/7. And while I like my work and all.....I don't know. I think of something I saw on one of the many re-runs of "The Incredible Dr. Pol" I watched over break, one of the dairy farmers he regularly visited saying "This isn't really a job, it's a lifestyle" and I know from talking to people who raise beef cattle that dairying is HARD (which is why they do beef cattle: they need less constant care) and it's almost impossible to take a vacation and your work is your life is your work. And I can't live like that. (And of course, me being me, it makes me wonder: Am I doing this wrong? Do I not love my work enough if I have to take time off from it? Should I have picked a different vocation?)

But yeah - maybe the thing about the "does this 'spark joy'" that annoys me, other than the slipperiness and ambiguity of "what does that even MEAN" is the idea that I kind of feel like it's okay to have stuff that doesn't necessarily serve a purpose - the things that a friend of mine once derided as "dustcatchers," for example - the little china animals, or my Pony collection, or yes, more books.