Clutter: 'Old technology" is the problem!

I picked up some lovely leather bound photo albums on special the other day -  they were less than $10 each! "You must be selling a lot of these!" i exclaimed excitedly to the sales assistant. Her forced smile brought me up short. "Not really - outdated technology."
Oh.

It got me thinking about how much of what is taking up space in my house - the clutter objects, that are always needing to be fitted in, put away, tidied up. It's the "old technology". All my books are the obvious culprits. I had 18 boxes of them when I first got married, and at our last move two years ago, we'd about doubled that. We have six large book cases (plus a few smaller ones) that would be pretty superfluous if we didn't have the book collection.


My entire cookbook collection should go. That will free up at least an entire cupboard of much needed space. Instead I'll have a tablet mounted on a special stand on the kitchen bench with all of my fave recipes accessible at the touch of a button. I'm not sure where one keeps notes on recipes, such as: Made this for church picnic Dec 2007. Don't think it was responsible for the gastro outbreak, but definitely refrigerate cream next time..



Which brings me to my magazines - a collection sadly not as immense as it once was, due to a few periods of self-righteous decluttering that saw me bin my treasured UK Elle's ("They were going mouldy!" that's my husband yelling - I thought they were still readable); and SELL my US Harper's Bazaar collection on ebay. Woe is me, the money wasn't worth it, they were works of art!
I still have substantial numbers of Donna Hay, Delicious, Victoria, UK Homes & Gardens, US Country Style, Australian Country Style, Good Taste, and others too numerous to mention. Goodness, if I changed to online subscriptions only I think my house would actually be approaching the realms of, dare I say it, MINIMALIST!

But why stop there? All of my current and past (yes, I do keep the old ones) diaries and calendars would be no more. And finally my address books and birthday books would be chucked on top of this (now massive) pile of obsolete objects. Okay some of them were beautifully bound and illustrated, but hey, it's just information in the end right?

So yes, if information storage was the only aim, and minimalism was the ultimate goal, I'd be going electronic all the way. It would be out with the old, and in with the new (and let's face it, there's always something new..) and the space left behind would be incredible, vast, open and soaring..

..and boring, and soulless and colourless and sort of void. Frankly, I'd hate it.
Am I a Luddite? Have I officially crossed over into being "old", fuddy duddy, totally off-trend?
Probably.

Comments

  1. I am having book shelf envy - looking at your collection is a delight!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular Posts