watching my thread discuss #marikondo is close to my research heart: the global circulation of cultural artifacts and practices, a thread
The thing is that clutter and decluttering seems like an almost "human nature" phenomenon in late capitalism. We all have stuff and some of us are feeling overwhelmed by our stuff. Hence the long history of best-selling books about decluttering
Now #marikondo: her approach to "things" and objects points to a particular Japanese ideological and cultural construct of the emotional life of things.
Japanese history points in multiple places to a Shinto belief that the objects that we own develop an emotional life in response to our emotional ties to that object. These objects are #tsukumogami, a type of yokai or Japanese spirit that is born of the emotional life of things
To treat things badly, to stack them up and to not use them or think positively of them is to disrespect a think that, through human emotional interaction, is given spirit. To surround yourself with things that bring you joy (maybe not best choice of phrase)...
us to surround yourself with objects that have an emotional life in relation to your own emotional life. Their health is dependent on your health. To thank things as you let go is to respect the synergistic emotional lives of you and your things.
Add to this another aspect of #shintoism: cleanliness. In English, we talk about cleanliness being next to godliness. This is part of the practice of everyday life in Japan. New Year cleaning. No shoes in house. Bathroom slippers. Cleaning sidewalks by splashing water daily
To be clean is to have a pure house. Cleaning is part of daily purification. Everyday baths. K-12 education has no janitors but has kids clean the school as part of their education and character building. I can go on here.
Now enter #marikondo in her cultural context. She reminds people about the emotional lives of things. She invites purification in cleanliness. If you read her book, she talks about treating your house as a Shinto shrine, clapping twice before entering
and she unashamedly brings her cultural attitude toward objects and the emotional lives of things. Thus when she selects based on joy, she's not looking for easy "joy" but meaningful emotional connection. And this is not getting translated well.
This is not a self-help guru that looks to turn our world into unchallenging milk-toast. This is an approach deeply embedded in Shintoism. It asks people about the emotional lives of things, not just our emotional attachment, & asks about our meaningful sustainable relationships
So keep the books that made you sad. Keep the important mementos of a lost one. But keep them meaningfully. And keep them clean. In its global dissemination, these core ideas are not translated across
Or ignore them. And live in fear of the angry #tsukumogami and a #hyakuyagyo or 100 ghost parade of angry and discarded spirits.
