These past few days, I've slowly cleaned out drawers, baskets, bags and pencil holders, putting things aside "stuff" for goodwill. It reminds me of the Chinese artist, Song Dong, who convinced his mother to allow him to display everything in her home. 10,000 personal items turned into the most mind blowing installation which he entitled "Waste Not".
His mother, Zhao Xiangyuan, was born in mainland China in the '30's. The huge political changes of the '50's and 60's robbed her family's wealth and her father was deemed a counter-revolutionary. She kept everything. For me, someone who has never lived through war, a depression or political upheaval, seeing piles of old pots, stubs of used soap and old shoes, was unusually beautiful and unreal.
I still remember the comparison Song Dong made between our generation which so easily acquires and throws out, and that of our grandparents. Chinese or not. Even when my grandmother passed away, my relatives were amazed by the amount of neatly organized, labelled jars of pencils stubs, plastic bags, margarine containers, twist-ties, etc... that she had kept in her home. Things that even goodwill probably wouldn't take. She never wasted either.
What's it like to not waste? I don't see myself keeping everything like Zhao Xiangyuan and my grandmother, so I guess the only way is to prevent things from coming in. So far, my 30 day list has helped toned down the spending and the shopping, but "things" should also include distractions, stress, time-wasters like television, negative thoughts, doing too much, multitasking, eating too fast, driving too fast and noise. Asking myself these questions also helps.
1. Is this "thing" supporting what's most important to me?
2. Is this "thing" useful, well made and aesthetically appealing?
3. What is the "cost" of keeping this "thing", cleaning it, repairing it and removing it when it longer works?
and so the soft tune keeps humming....
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