First of all: Marie Kondo’s decluttering philosophy is not just some “woo-woo nonsense” she came up with on the fly. The Ascent explained that she’s using practices from Shintoism, which includes beliefs that nature and material things have spirits and must be treated with respect.
She’s not shoving her beliefs down your throat. In fact, she told Refinery29 that you don’t have to change your home if you’re comfortable with clutter. Just make sure “you still have a designated spot for each item, and also to understand how much quantity of each category of things you have and need.”
Marie Kondo: Maybe treat your home and possessions with respect, here are some methods to help you stay organised but feel free to tailor it to your self own life 🙂
The internet: Holy shit this woman must be burned at the stake immediately
This is what I’ve been saying when people bring this up in real life conversation. The idea that household objects have spirits is not new. And I think that bringing these beliefs into the practice of letting things go todeclutter your life is extremely effective.
We all joke about what Toy Story “did” to us, but it really is true that many people feel an inexplicable guilt when they throw something away, not just because it feels wasted, but because we feel, somehow, vaguely, impossibly, maybe it can feel sorrow.
I’ve only seen this addressed a few times by organization experts, and even then it was mocked.
Marie Kondo connecting her culture with that universal worry and telling people it’s okay, normal, to have that anxiety, and to give them ways to cope with it (i.e. thanking the object for its time in your life) is a really effective way to help people let go of these unecessary possessions!
Moreover, in the United States, many of us have been raised by our parents’ generation on the idea of the “starter house,” a smaller space we deem only acceptable until we can “upgrade.” But our generation can’t afford that.
In the show, young couples with children say they don’t have enough space, that their house is too small, and Marie Kondo teaches them that in fact, they do, and it’s not, they just need to learn how to manage and prioritize their space. People end up happier about their situations and lives.
The truth is we do live in a highly materialistic and throwaway culture, in which we accumulate a lot that we don’t need, until eventually we are drowning in our own Stuff.
This is especially a problem among the poor and disabled (both of which I am), because we hold onto things we don’t need now in case we need them later because we can’t just buy them again. But I think that fear of throwing away something we’ll need later grows to extremes, until we are trapped in a mess created by our anxiety.
I think it’s extremely refreshing for an expert to come in without judgement, without looking at us as if being poor and living in a mess of hand-in-hand, like so many others do, and saying there is a way to bring peace to your space, no matter who you are. She meets people on a level they can function on. Everyone is different with different needs, and she works with that.
This anxiety, along with the judgement we are Used to feeling from people who have jobs like Marie Kondo is what has made so many people feel so defensive and negative about what she has to teach, but it’s no excuse for the racist and culturally negative attitudes people use alarms against her work.
I have OCD, I am poor, I have a clutter problem. Solving it isn’t easy. I’m getting rid of stuff I think I can’t possibly part with. But once it’s gone, I feel so much lighter.
You don’t have to live by her ideals or even have any interest in her work at all, but the things being said about her and the dismissal of her work and culture need to stop.
