For those who may be living under a rock, the latest craze in urban living is The KonMari Method spearheaded by Marie Kondo, a very soft spoken Japanese woman with an iron discipline, it is a Japanese method of organizing and re-organizing your stuff.
The primary point of the KonMari method is to eliminate all things that do not "spark joy", thank them for their service in your life, and then releasing (giving away/selling) everything else such that the only things in your life are the joyful things.
It seems to be quite the InterWeb rage at this point (we are living through it in my home) seemingly by a combination of the New Year and a general trend towards the "living simply" movement that runs as a undertone through a segment of society (and IKEA, if you have ever been there). And it is hypnotic: Once you start plowing through stuff, it almost becomes like a drug to see how much you can eliminate in a short period of time.
Now to be fair, most of us (myself included) can find a certain level of removing "stuff" to be a good thing - and certainly I am reaching a point in my life where less is more. Other than books and the occasional disposable items like shoes, I buy very little beyond what we need for eating. And I know that the next two generations ahead of me buy even less. And I am certain that this cheers the hearts of those that pursue the tiny houses, small footprints, and simple living.
But the future is not so promising under this method.
The reality is that there are really only two kind of economic cultures: subsistence (making a living to eat) and consumer (making something to sell to something else). I suppose you could argue that their is a third - call it the socialist or communist model where things are made and exchanged on a sort of needed basis - but that has never been demonstrated to effectively work. In the first economy, one simply works to live and hopefully provides enough overage to trade for something else. In the second, one works specifically (in most cases) to provide something for something else and hopefully has enough left over to live.
(As an aside, another split could be made between a manufacturing economy and a service economy. But I think the ultimate outcome will be the same).
Here is the unhappy reality: Not everyone can make things that people definitively need. We cannot all make medicine or washing machines or silverware or swords. Lots of people make the sorts of things that are in people's houses for a while and then are not longer needed or make nothing at all except a service. If these things are removed from the economic pool, what happens then?
Imagine a world where everything that was owned was only that which brought joy or were truly needed to live - and imagine, really imagine, how few items that would really constitute. What will the rest of the population do? Flip burgers? Buff nails? Clean house? Do yard work? (All which are well on their way to be done by machines).
Yes yes, I know - in a "Star Trek" world we all get to do what we want and we never worry about income. But this is the real world, and nothing is free - and even if you tried an experiment with Universal Basic Income, how are those few that are working going to pay for everyone else? (Hint: They will not.)
Do I have answers? As usual, no, just riddles in the dark. But it does bear consideration: if what you make or what you do is no longer needed or wanted, what will you do to replace it? And will that really represent a better thing?
I don't know. But they are all good posers.
ReplyDeleteI don't have any answers either.
Hey, I like living under my rock! LOL. I just recently heard about KonMari on another blog. She gave a gist of the how-to, so I appreciate that you give the rationale. That certainly makes more sense than the popular "if you didn't use it in the last year get rid of it." That one simply doesn't work with the self-reliant lifestyle. But then, neither does the modern economic model, which is okay with me.
ReplyDeleteLinda, I do not have answers either. It is worth asking the questions now though, rather than when the day finally arrives.
ReplyDeleteLeigh, under the rock is where it is at.
ReplyDeleteIf you look at traditional Japanese culture (and engage in broad generalizations, which I am now) it was overall a culture of less "stuff". And there is a religious element as well: in Shinto, things have spirits and so it is the spirit (Kami) of the thing that makes it an item worth considering if it gives joy.
But you are correct: it is a philosophy born of a society that has too much, not too little. And it is at odds with the self-reliant lifestyle, which requires us to have things that we use to make our lives go at all - which in some cases may be used occasionally.