TerrieMiller.com

I’ve noticed a shift in my thinking about clutter. The old way was despair…clutter was bad, I hate clutter, this is making me miserable, I’ll really be the person I want to be when I get rid of clutter, I shouldn’t live with clutter, clutter is a manifestation of my own incompetance, definitely I shouldn’t do anything fun until I get this clutter cleaned up.

I won’t say that that’s all gone…but it’s shifting. I’m starting to recognize that clutter isn’t necessarily mess. Life *is* cluttered. If you’re really living, your living area probably doesn’t look like a photo shoot for a home decor magazine. Don’t get me wrong; I like to have a certain level of order around me; I need to be able to walk through a room without stumbling over things and I like to be able to take something off a shelf or out of a cupboard without knocking three other things over. But I’m giving up on the home decor ideal.

A big fear about clutter fear about clutter that is a fear about hoarding. I’ve seen hoarding…it’s frightening and depressing. It is despair over an empty life. But there’s a difference between being surrounded by your tools and projects and being surrounded by piles of stuff you’ve accumulated just because you acquire stuff to fill in the other holes in your life (and that’s what hoarding is). And too much of my own consumerism leans in this direction. The clutter can be a red herring, letting me fool myself that if I can keep it all cleaned up, it’s all ok. If I can make it look like a photo in a magazine article where someone else is telling me what my living space should look like, it’s all good. Right? Wrong.

Though my attitude about clutter has been shifting for some time, I really noticed it when I saw a recent post by Lloyd Khan. The post was about his new camera, but it included a photo of his kitchen. You can see it here. I looked at that photo and thought it looked warm and inviting. It looked like a place where friends would be happy to cook dinner together. It looked like it would be easy to cook here — lots of kitchen tools readily visible and available. Khan’s photos in Home Work and Shelter showed similar interiors…the surroundings of interesting creative people. But you can truly call this counter culture…because our mainstream culture doesn’t appreciate it. Too much media wants to shove a different idea down our throats and sell us a vision of a pristine home where nothing is done.

And then on Sunday he made another post that crystalizes it all:

“Sometimes I wonder if I and my friends, with our preferences for cozy, colorful, creative, rich dwelling spaces aren’t a little like the book lovers in Fahrenheit 451 — in the minority, out of the mainstream.

“Take Dwell magazine as an example of soulless living. No warmth, no richness, no human clutter in the sterile homes depicted. Is this the future of shelter? I hope not.”

If I had my choice, I’d much rather have a living area worthy of one of Khan’s photos than of Dwell Magazine. But I want good human clutter. I want clutter that says I’m doing stuff, living and creating. Too much of my clutter says that I’m buying things as a substitute.