Читать книгу Clear your Clutter - Manifest your dreams - Birgit Medele - Страница 12

We long for soul mates, for the community that understands where we are coming from and knows what we are all about. Identifying with a nation, region or religion meets the innate desire to belong; to be part of a greater good. By supporting a football team, worshipping a certain type of music, joining a party, parish or community, we move into the equivalent of an emotional home. As a fan we can live and express feelings of individuality and union at the same time. Granny collects tea pots; a colleague has amassed hundreds of vinyl records; friends are enthusiastic about apps, model airplanes or vintage cartoons. Stacks of ancient theatre programmes or school exercise books reassure us, “I did that – that’s me.” We pick and choose beliefs, clothes and shades of terracotta and perform a series of passionate identifications with artefacts; selecting them from the cultural market garden, hoping they will form a harmonious, thousand-petalled display that, the picture of our soul. Ultimately we are accumulating an essence. An art collection as an outlet for creativity; the movie compilation as the manifested desire to do some acting one day or a stint in comedy circles. Model planes symbolise speed, getting somewhere fast; aspirations of reaching goals, of freedom...

Go on a safari into your very own jungle of things. What image(s) are you attached to? Which essence are you hoarding? How could you get closer without having to put up one shelf after another? Endless rows of books might stand for (please delete as appropriate), “I’m well read / widely travelled / open minded / educated / eclectic / enlightened / cool / classy / different / intelligent / witty / imaginative / spiritual / special / an art lover / lateral thinker / reformer / revolutionary / a good dad / in the know / committed to personal development and/or saving the planet...” What is the headline above your shelves, spelt out in invisible ink?

We want to be respected and loved and use objects to communicate this. “Look at this stuff, that’s how unique I am! Please love me for what I’m wearing / driving / listening to...” Of course we know deep down that others do not like us for our collections of handbags or sophisticated living room interiors. If we make people laugh, we can do without the ultimate leather-bound twelve volume jokes collection. And if we have not been abundantly blessed with a sense of humour and/or the gift of the gab, even the most elaborate compilation will not be able to help change that. We communicate through our being, what we are outshines everything we hoard, say or do.

Cross-cultural living is a challenge because we have to keep more than one identity alive. One client said, “We live two lives, a contemporary Western and a traditional Indian one. I have to store the Christmas decorations as well as Saris and Dwali paraphernalia.”

When thinking about status it gets interesting as soon as we start sidestepping beloved clichés like the red open-top sports car. Status symbols are chameleons and adopt the most varied of formats. They are tools to communicate an image and we all use them to broadcast our own personal messages. For some it is about brands, for others it is about avoiding them. They go to great lengths to only ever use local, organic or recycled goods in order to distance themselves from the shallow consumerism of a throwaway society. The big relief: trying to impress others never works anyway, so we might as well call it a day and stop sweating the small stuff.

We are not what we have, we are what we are. We are our story, a mosaic of experience puzzle pieces laid out in a magnificent, brilliantly unique pattern. How about expanding a collection that we started years ago? Key items might still be missing: a dream holiday, an encounter or a class that we always fancied having a go at. How about stockpiling memorable moments instead of things? The most intriguing compilation of all does not require dusting and we can even take it with us in the end – our collection of experiences.