Clutter crisis

The Good Life with Eli F.J. Tajanlangit

Trust people from the West to put a finger on almost everything, and a name for practically every human condition, oftentimes not just diagnosing but also offering solutions to solve it, including those that in other cultures are considered harmless everyday realities.

This came to my mind recently, when it dawned on me that there are now too many books – yes, entire volumes! – discussing and analyzing clutter and how to ‘conquer’ it. I wanted to laugh. Things have a way of turning sexy in the translation, don’t they? Clutter is, plain and simple, lapta and sagbot, garbage, in our dialect. Yes, its that mound of papers on top of your desk that you don’t even see anymore; the clothes and shoes you haven’t worn since college that are still in your closet, the knickknacks and whatnots that are sitting in the nooks and crannies of your house for years that have really no use anymore but simply take up space.

Over the years, you see these piles growing and growing, overtaking your space and sometimes, simply taking over. I’ve been to basements where you can hardly move because they’re filled up; attics that look like mini-department stores. In almost all homes, I’m pretty sure, are stockpiles of things people just could not throw out.

What do you know – the books now tell us they are symptoms of some unreleased tension in our minds that gnaw at us and hold us back from living fully and well. They are also a source of stress, for the most part unrecognized, and therefore more vicious. Most of these analyses link clutter to that other modern-day sickness called hoarding, the propensity of many people to acquire things and keep them, piling them up. There is something psychological there in our inability to let go of things, the mind doctors tell us.

But from whatever angle these analyses take the matter, they all agree clutter is a problem and it must be solved. The Clutter Challenge! Conquer Your Clutter! De-clutter your home, De-clutter your mind!

I don’t know. Maybe because their societies are more advanced, and they have more time and resources to examine things, Westerners launch studies and investigations into practically anything, draw conclusions from them and then posit to the public what should be done.

But could it also be that these people just do not have anything else to do, and so to fill up their time go into analyzing things and add to the already burgeoning information overload we are faced with day in and day out?

Could their findings, for example, apply to us who live in an entirely different culture that cannot afford to go into the psychology of garbage, where the primordial need is to find something to eat? And oh, yes, the clutter they call in the West could mean something of value to us.

I don’t mean to promote cluttering, but many of my friends say they keep the things they keep even if they cannot immediately say what they are for, because many times, they realize the value of things when they’ve been thrown out already.

          Good Friend R, ever the minimalist, has one rule about her things like clothes and shoes: the ones she hasn’t worn for a year go at the year-end, that means she really has no need for them and they are better given to those who need them. She can, of course, afford this, being in show business; besides, her work does call for always wearing the latest. But some mind doctor can very well claim such a practice of giving away things so easily is symptomatic of rootlessness and undervaluing one’s possessions can also mean low self-esteem.

I guess this is something that each one can decide for ourselves. We don’t need Westerners to tell us what to do with our lapta. But oh yes, it can only be a question of cleanliness, really, so remember what our mothers used to tell us: “Abi, himusa di ang linapta mo…Clean up your mess, please…”*

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