What's the Use?

[degringolade]

 

 

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Strange saying that.  “What’s the use?’  isn’t so much a question in vernacular english, but instead signifies just giving up.

But if you are asking it as a question, it actually becomes quite enlightening.  I have never watched a Marie Kondo show or read one of her books, but the joy of the internet lets me know the way she rolls and I approve.  I especially like the title of a semi-parody book by “Messie Condo” Nobody Wants Your Shit.

I think that this kind of thing is going to increasingly become a necessity and when it finally occurs it will be re-imagined as a virtue.  

I can live with that.  

What is going to define a lot of the way things might or might not go is the distinct possibility that “demand destruction” might well become a thing (I do so love that euphemism).  One of the consequences of this branch of possibility is that folks might start to put two and two together and start figuring out that they have too much shit and a great deal of the energy that they can no longer afford is going into maintaining things that they never really needed in the first place. 

Think about it.  

Comments

[claire_58]

Maria Kondo was a threat to consumer culture. She challenged people to reject materialism and seek "joy." She had a brief moment in the sun but when they found out that her clients were turning away from shopping for fulfilment and thoughtless mass hoarding they had to bring her down.
I don't think she set out to be revolutionary but seeking joy instead of self-soothing with a credit card isn't okay.
I liked her but I wasn't surprised to see her get slandered and ridiculed.

Conversations

[degringolade]

I had a brief conversation with my brother in law who informed me that he had watched an interview with Marie Kondo who admitted that, following her having children, her house became quite cluttered.

Which made me respect her even more.

the telling question (you may recall this story)

[chefxh]

My parents married in October 1943. Aileen picked Wedgwood china, which kept getting sunk on its way to her mother's house in Missoula. She never did have the whole set. But she chose a full crystal service for 8 from Heisey in the "Orchid" pattern, which made its domestic journey intact.

All that stuff was in the china cabinet when I was a kid, along with the Irish linen tablecloths and napkins and the engraved sterling tableware. She moved it all into the hoarder house on the dairy farm, then back into the house with the pool, then into three apartments. She sold all the pieces that weren't chipped. Then she left it all behind.

Years later I came to find out that my middle sister had KEPT all that useless chipped crystal, to give to ME when I had a house to put it in. And she did. And when we were moving out off Mill Street I tried to sell it. I really did. And we did have lots of gem and mineral specimens for sale. But when I mentioned that we were selling everything, even my mother's chipped wedding crystal, the young woman did ask me:

"What's a wedding crystal?"

Re: the telling question (you may recall this story)

[degringolade]

Good lord, that reminds me of the cupboards in my families homes....The good china and the good crystal and the good silver.......

The stuff got trotted out three times a year for the "adults table" and had to be dusted prior to use.

Re: the telling question (you may recall this story)

[chefxh]

And washed, and dried, AND the silver polished... Apart from the china lost at sea, my folks and their friends were drunks; the china and crystal did not stay so beautiful. My Aunt Carol was a few years younger, and chose the same "Orchid" pattern. She never cooked, so her set was intact and pristine, if dusty, in the huge dark cabinet in her little dining room. Aileen (who died in '84) had long since sold the unchipped ones. She sold the sterling (which was to be mine on my wedding day, engraved with our initial) when the Hunt brothers ran silver up to $18 in the '80s. I agreed, since I expected never to marry. We split the cash. Easy to mourn the money I would have had for that sterling last year, but what are the odds I would still have it with me?