For Cure-takers, a meditation or riff or rant on values, after the jump.
Meditation: On Values
We Americans take a funny attitude toward introspection: we question our children incessantly about who they are, what they like, who they might want to become, but as soon as the answers start to get interesting, we say that all that sort of stuff is navel-gazing. We talk about values on our soapboxes, or criticize our neighbors' lack thereof, but it seems rare for us to question and codify our own values. A manifesto, okay, maybe that's a bit much, but how about a checklist?
Whether your crib ends up Feng Shui'ed or mid-century'd or otherwise pimped, to my mind one of the prinicpal aims of the Cure is to give you a chance to think about who you are, what you want, what your values are. Then you get to see the places where you lack integrity, where your reality doesn't match your values.
In my house, for example, the teeming hall closet with its bags of things-I-don't-actually-want-but-keep-anyway belies my faith in the value of giving back, the value of letting go, the value of getting the damn thing done. So every time I open that closet door, I get a tiny little stab of unease or even shame, too small to notice, but enough to make me start to hang my coat on the hook outside instead. And then the next coat, and the next, and before I know it I have two problems instead of one.
So I put on a coat or two and head down to the museum, that exalted place where all the choices about value and order have already been made for me. But then the art critic Dave Hickey nixes that fantasy:
'In truth, I don't think there's any serious discourse of art that doesn't begin with the discourse of value, with a preferential choice. .. In my view, when we talk about quality in art, we are, invariably, displacing some quantity of our own response, so that when we say a work of art is good or that it has quality, what we mean is that some quantitative measure in our own response invests it with value. What we are saying, really, is: wow, I can look at this for a long time; wow, this makes me really excited; wow, I can write a whole lot of words about this (my favorite); or, wow, this is really expensive; or, wow, I want to take this home and look at it for a long time; or, wow, this work is so memorable that I can go home without having bought it and think about it for a long time. These are all quantitative measures that invest art with its perpetuity. They all measure one thing: the extent to which a work of art presents itself to us as the incarnation of values that we value. ... People come to the museum to figure out for themselves what they think is good - to engage in a general discourse of value - to ascertain or discover in works of art values that they value.'
Adulthood means we're on the hook for the quality of our own lives. So whether we're gazing at Rothkos or sconces or, yes, our own navels, we're never finished with the questions: Who are you? What do you want? Who do you want to be?
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I know that I hold on to things "just in case." It is a fear of lack, a distrust in my own (or the universe's) ability to continually provide for my basic survival or, let's face it, comfort.
This time last year I was living in a dorm out of a suitcase, with most of my stuff at home in my apartment. I did it for nine weeks, and it reminded me that I can survive without everything I own.
When I got home, I began getting rid of things, books mostly, but I still have plenty that is hanging around taking up space, shrouded with memories I'd rather not confront daily.
Part of this Cure for me is about valuing my life as it currently is. This means getting rid of things that symbolize other times in my life, parts which hold negative feelings and emotions.
Okay, I think I've gotten way off track, but there it is.
i have had to give up everything i own, except for the absolute necessities, so many times in my life. i grew up in a part of the country prone to hurricanes and flooding, and there were several times where either we had to grab a few changes of clothes, schoolbooks, a toothbrush, etc. and evacuate, or we'd wake up in the morning to water in the house (nothing like the feeling of plunging your footie-pajama clad leg down into an inch of water and drenched carpet to wake you up in the morning, by the way!) . and then as an adult i've had to abandon or sell everything multiple times for multiple reasons. including things i loved. including things i wasn't sure i could live without.
all this has helped me get really insanely good at editing. i can convince myself that i don't need just about anything. it also means that i have a lot of trouble taking things from other people, because then when it comes time for the purge i know i'll feel all guilty, or what if i have to move and it won't fit in the man w/ the van's van, etc. additionally, it means i have trouble admitting that it's ok to have things, and that it's ok to love what i have and express myself through objects.
hence my disastrous bedroom, yet permanent spot for an outbox (and total familiarity with how to jettison stuff).
I'm a serious minimalist so I don't have any clutter to get rid of, but I have done a major closet purge. Anything that looks a bit dated or really isn't flatering is out the door, regardless of what I paid for it. It always feels great to be rid of things that really aren't doing me any good, and they might be perfect for someone else.
I have never had any trouble spending more for quality products, but recently I've kicked out for things like a great hair dryer ($150 for the T3 Tourmaline Featherweight) that has made a big difference in both time of drying and how my insanely thick, curly hair looks. Maybe not a typical "cure" item, but it has been absolutely worth it to me.
I agree with the Opoponax.
After having edited manythings and moved many times I have realized that I do not hold on to any thing in my house. A friend of mine is currently visiting Asia and is asking me to think of something that i want from there - honestly i really do not want any physical possessions - atleast I am not attached to anything. I can pick up and leave anytime with my essential documents that helps me to show my identity. I have always enjoyed living in a suitcase and I realise that I do enjoy life as it is and travel the world instead of hoarding on things. Enjoy every moment of life's creations - design, color, art in various forms, nature in its different hues and faces, people in its various sizes, forms and colors - Isn't that life is all about. In fact only when people 'settle' down that they look for posessions to find meaning in life - to make them feel that they own something, to feel achieved, because what ever you do or say - maslow's hierarchy of needs is what everybody in life seeks - self actualization and some people find that in possessions.
On another note my 2 cents - Apartment therapy must have it's own show on TV. It will be a total hit.
- A lot of cure,
- Color
- Limited Budget
- DIY's
- Design
- Cozy and Comfort
- Addressing needs first and wants later
- Looking at house as heaven than obsessive source of possession. Way to take a detour
Way to go maxwell.
whenever i hear people boast about their ability to do without stuff, i quietly hope they will send their stuff in my direction. emma gardner rugs, huang hua li tables, copper fountains...
I hear you, Rasil.
Both the husband and I have done the "all I own fits in checked luggage" phase of life, and it's definitely not where we want to be right now. That doesn't rule out dumping everything and moving to Prague or Paris someday... but we have moved and changed jobs so many times that coming HOME to somewhere that exudes stability (and functions nicely) has a lot of psychological value at the moment.
Unsurprisingly, in feng shui terms, our home strongly emphasizes EARTH -- apparently I've never met anything square and golden-beige that I didn't like. Any more grounded, and we'd be subterranean.
i certainly didn't want to imply that one should aspire to live out of a suitcase.
i have to say i really don't see that sort of life through rosy glasses. at all. it sucks to assemble a library of books and media, only to have to sell it off so you can afford a metrocard this month. it sucks to have to ditch everything you own that can't be transported to the new place by subway. to "lend" your most needed and beloved stuff to friends while you travel only to have it magically disappear upon your return. to be worried about accepting a gift or a hand-me-down from a friend or a lover because you know that it means something bigger than just one person helping another.
i do have to admit i'm fascinated with the idea of having the perfect balance of everything i need and nothing i don't. i agree 100% with the idea of a carefully curated home, but that doesn't mean i want to live out of a backpack. like wende, i relish being able to come home and have everything i want at my fingertips, in an attractive and comfortable package.
at this point i feel that my fear of "stuff" is probably more of a liability than the reverse would be.
I so wish I could be someone that wasn't attached to things. I recall as a child our house always having to be "perfect" so I couldn't keep the things I treasured. I now make up for that need to keep everything. I realize that I will always be taken care of, and that I will always have more than I ever need, but I still worry. I am hoping the cure helps me purge, because how many sentimental attachments can you have. I am certain that I will never be a minimalist, and that I won't throw away cards from my husband, but everyday I hope that I can get a little neater and a little happier by letting go of things that get in my way.
For those of you that purge easily, good for you I wish I could, but to be in your shoes, not so sure, because a constant reminder next to the bed that you are loved is far more precious than being able to use a swiffer duster to me.
I have always agreed that each person's expression of style is an expression of values. This is as true in art and writing as it is in fashion, architecture, and interior design.
I am not a minimalist though I do believe that excess is dangerous. I can completely understand Shannon's closet experience. I have a similar problem of keeping things "just in case." It began early when I couldn't afford to lose anything. Now that I can afford to replace things, I still keep things because I'm lazy.
Getting rid of excess takes work. It is a tiring job that can be very emotional. But it's worth it - it's one of the most valuable things you can do for yourself.
Just to take this in a different direction for a moment--furnishing and equipping a home can be done at almost any price point. You can get a faucet set for $30 or for hundreds (maybe thousands). That's just an example of course....but it can be applied to everything you purchase, or, even, create for your home.
And it is precisely for this reason that I think you can say that a home reflects a person's values.
But you have to be careful when you try to ascertain just what those values are. Merely because a person may have an ugly cheap faucet doesn't mean they don't appreciate beauty.
Ok--you can "get" that about one thing...but what about everything? What if circumstances--for whatever reasons--make it so that every choice must be made at the "cheap, functional and ugly" level--do we then say that that person has no appreciation for beauty at all?
As well, to turn this around, I think we should be careful about judging interiors that evidence the ability to spend a lot of money on them--would it be fair to judge the people who create them "shallow" and "egoistic?"
Unless you have access to their credit rating AND their heart, then you can only go so far in ascertaining exactly what "values" someone may be expressing with his or her home.
On the other hand...one thing I've learned from this cure is this: take a look around you. Unless you *do* something different between now and "someday"--someday you are going to take a look around and realise nothing's any different.
So, it's a wonderful question to ask--is THIS how I want to live for the rest of my life? 'Cause, really, in a fundamental way, this is it, baby.
Interesting to look at this thread during a break from major-league purging (as part of Week 2 of the Cure). I grew up in a pack rat home, so there was never any incentive to purge my belongings.
But during the past year, watching my parents' painfully slow & disorganized exit from their house of 34 years, and the fact that they are still not even close to being settled in their overstuffed condo after 4 months, underscored for me the need to lead a more examined life with my things. That, and the arrival in 9 weeks or so of my first child, in whose bedroom my miles of files are currently dumped.
And as I'm going through the detritus of an unexamined life, I am finding it easier and easier to edit certain things. I can keep an award certificate, sure, but I *don't* need the ugly black vinyl cover it came in.
But... coming up with a filing system for my years worth of drafts of poems (not to speak of going through and deciding which ones to simply trash) will take much, much longer. And in the scheme of things, it always proves much easier to shred years of old bank statements than it does to sit down and figure out a direction for my past and future creative work.
So... I guess I've learned some, but still have a lot more to learn.
"What if circumstances--for whatever reasons--make it so that every choice must be made at the "cheap, functional and ugly" level...?"
Been there. Recently. I have been told I have 'champagne tastes on a beer budget.' My reply was, and is, that I can do a great deal on a beer budget. Paint can work wonders, even on inherited 1970's crap furniture. Then again, given the site I'm posting at, I think everyone here is aware of that.
"do we then say that that person has no appreciation for beauty at all?"
What I would look at, is what they have done with what circumstances dictate they must use. For example, I know someone who has furnished her small apartment soley thru freecycle and thrift shops. She has a cohesive thread throughout the apartment, everything she needs is at hand, presentable, and clean. The apartment looks GREAT. Done without an appreciation for beauty, it could have been horrible. It is not the materials you are handed but what you do with them.
This is funny - I wsa just thinking about this topic this week because there is honestly no part of my apartment that needs to be cured. Sorry I should take that back and say I just finished curing my entire apartment. I jusr finished major renovations of my entire apartment and purged and added storage and organized and put up curtains and now, it is a sigh of relief when i come home and not only do i feel more complete at home but my home feels more complete with me in it.
i just came back home to boston from a westin hotel for the weekend (in chicago) and i actually missed my apartment for its warmth and beauty and grace.
i will send in a house tour - see for yourself.
i think a home mostly reflects who you are and who you want to be, including your values.
right now everything i own fits into a minivan. for a long time owning stuff made me anxious: knicknacks, tchotchkes, even household gadgets i don't use often. my mom and grandmother were hoarders, a disease i misunderstood for a long time and believed to be nothing but rank materialism, and so i was always afraid to be sentimental about stuff--i was afraid that if i loved anything too much to throw or give away, i would slip down that slope. fortunately, i enjoyed spending my money on experiences rather than things, although i took more pride in that than i probably ought to have.
right now i'm doing an extended house-sit in a furnished home, and it's been a wonderful experience. yes, there's a lot to dust and i don't envy the owner the task of packing if/when she ever decides to move. but it's a warm, inviting home with lots of life and lots of personality, not professionally done by any means--just put together by a lay person with decent taste and interesting, beloved objects. it's something i now aspire to. maybe a little more edited--old habits die hard, and my budget isn't as big--but it makes such a difference to have even just a little evidence of your life lying around.
and i agree that you can do a lot on a tiny budget. you may have a lot fewer choices, but that makes those choices more important. and paint, slipcovers, and curtains can do wonders.
i am falling behind already.
i finally bought the cure book thursday +
after i took pictures of the entire house,
my husband took the digital camera on a fishing trip this weekend + dropped it into a river-poof no pictures. + my cure book has already been devoured by the clutter. maybe it's in the car?
i even called a # i saw on a flyer titled "your personal assistant" + offered help organizing + claimed to blitz through projects with nonjudgmental + confidential professionalism. she said she'd walk through my house + make a checklist of to-dos for 2 1/2 hours, then go home + think about my house for 2 1/2 hours + she charges $600 for that service. i've got to find my cure book!
wow. this topic really hits me hard. For years I was afraid to spend the time to create a gracious home because I associated interior decorating with shallow materialism. After all, who wants to think about throw pillows when they could be hiking, or saving the world or something?
However, I've come to realize that, even at my most active, I still spend a lot of time at home and when it doesn't function well, it affects my whole life. So it's worth spending some time (and money) making a place that works. So that I get up in the morning thinking "where should we go today" not "Oh my god. What a dump. Maybe if I go back to bed it will all go away"
Part of that process has been realizing that the flip side of moving with only what fits in checked luggage is that you have to re-assemble the necessities of life - from brooms to bookshelves - once you get where you're going. Depending on where you moved to and how you like to spend your time that can be really fun or an energy-sapping debacle.
Like Alana said - we only get one shot at this, so you might as well be happy.
"cheap, functional and ugly"
Just because something is cheap or functional doesn't make it ugly - we should be careful that we don't confuse expensive with good design - you can find just as many ugly things in the top spending bracket as you can find beautiful things in the cheap spending bracket
Spending money should not be a substitute for choosing good design
Personally, I find it very hard to get rid of stuff that has a memory attached to it or that I've had for a long time - which is stupid - why should I feel guilty for getting rid of a piece of furniture that I've have since childhood any more than something I bought a couple of years ago? - however it still feels like I'm betraying my family when I dispose of something that they provided for me - probably because that family is all gone now - I have to steel myself and just do it before I change my mind - I use the question "Would I pay to ship this to my new apartment in New York?" and if the answer is "no" then why am I keeping it??
I can complete relate, Violetsrose; even for a minimalist getting rid of something that is deeply rooted in personal history is rough. Last year I gave up my dad's college sports championship jacket to a thrift shop; it was 30 years old and just taking up space in my closet, but it was brutally hard to do. My dad is still alive, so it is hardly the only thing I have left of him. I think it would have been easier to give up a kidney.
in terms of giving up unused clothes that have sentimental value- I'm in the process of collecting clothes of my husband and mine's that are unwearable, and I'm going to make them into a quilt. if you don't have the crafty talent to do it yourself, there are people you can find online to do it for you.
so I see no need to get rid of sentimental stuff that's unused- just repurpose it :)
I have also seen companies that make sports coats/suit jackets into teddy bears.
I also think there is a serious muddying of the concepts of "values" and something *having* value going on here...
And I agree STRONGLY that you can NOT judge someone's VALUES with an apartment tour...
Absolutely, P2--for me what the Dave Hickey quote really gets at is that values are what we bring to the party--they aren't fixed objects residing in the art on the museum's walls or the neighbor's walls. That said, I do think I make some judgements--tempered always with mercy, I pray--when I look at people's homes and see the various ways people fashion welcoming and peaceful and energizing spaces.