the life changing magic of flailing and destroying household objects
my personal
art of breaking things and throwing them out, thereby decluttering
erin mcmahan
In this
essay, I have summed up how to put your space in order, or if not in order, at
least with less stuff in it.
Impossible?
That’s what everyone says, especially as the slow creep of things across a
surface begins minutes after you clean it up. Let’s be real, we all have this
pathological need to accumulate shit that we may someday need, while
simultaneously wishing we lived in a simple, tastefully decorated yurt, and
this drives us into a schizophrenic whirlpool of conflicting thoughts and
desires.
Have you
ever felt this dark morass of conflicting instincts regarding your inability to
declutter? If so, let me share with you the secret to, if not success, to the momentarily relief when you realize that no, you did not need that extra pint
glass that is now on the floor in pieces. Start
by breaking your stuff. Then, once you experience the catharsis that comes with
smashing something, you can rejoice in having one less object, forget about
organizing, and go have a beer with your friends. If you adopt this approach- the McMahErin Method-you
will never find yourself having too many fragile useful objects in your home
again!
Although
this course contradicts the conventional wisdom of keeping things intact,
everyone who has completed it, by that I mean me, finds that it positively
impacts other parts of their lives. They find that they worry less about little
things cluttering the house because they are too busy focusing on removing tiny
shards of glass from their sink. Imagined testimonials (this might someday be
you!) include:
“After your
course, I quit my lucrative and stable job and launched my own business doing
demolition- my dream since I was a child.”
“You taught
me to see what I really need and smash the rest. Now I’m smashing the
patriarchy!”
“I’m amazed
to find that just throwing things against a wall or hard floor on a regular
basis has changed my relationship with my neighbors so much!”
This hypothetically
demonstrates that smashing has changed their way of thinking and their approach
to life, and even their future.
When you smash things in your house,
you smash your affairs and the things in your past as well!
People often
ask me where me passion for smashing began. I suppose my skill for flailing and
breaking stuff was realized at a very young age. I have no recollection of
this, but like any other toddler on the planet, I’m sure I relished dropping
bowls of SpaghettiOs on the dog and throwing spoons across the kitchen.
In many
children, that phase wears off after a few years, but I guess I was just born
with a natural gift for it. I was obsessed with home demolition magazines and
would spend hours in my room gazing up at the delicate objects on top of my
bookshelf. Glassware, ceramics mugs, valued family heirlooms, nothing was free
from my smashing proclivities. But while reading these magazines on the floor
of my untidy room (that I was supposed to be cleaning) I was dismayed to find myself surrounded by clutter!
One day, as
I dutifully swept up a broken Christmas ornament I had knocked down, it hit me.
Why not use my ability to break everything in my kitchen to help people smash
their own things? This was it! This was the secret to my decluttering. Smash
all of your possessions and then you really
won’t be tempted to keep them. I could take this on the road, launching a
cultish smashing/decluttering empire and one day have my own reality TV show about
smashing stuff!
Would you
like to reset your life? Does the thought of your multiple un-used pint glasses
and coffee mugs make you cringe? This can be the first step to a new you with
fewer breakable objects in your space. Flailing while putting on coats and
moving around the room can also be an excellent source of exercise and rejuvenation!
Save on that gym membership and flail about enough to knock art from the walls.
Just be sure to follow my patented steps: 1)
break something. 2) sweep it up and put it in the trash. 3) remove the trash
from your space and let it go. 4) feel bad about breaking it but then justify
it by knowing that you have removed clutter from your home. 5) break something
else.
A few
things to consider when deciding what to break: First, does it spark joy? Let’s
consider an antique glass Christmas ornament that been in the family for
generations. Does it spark joy? Well, now it doesn’t matter, because there it
is on the floor in a million pieces! Does that fine crystal glass vase that you
got for your graduation spark joy? Think of the happy memories it will elicit
later when your bare feet encounter escaped shards of it on the floor. How
about the coffee mug that your best friend made for you in ceramics? Now think
of the joy it will spark when you liberate it from its handle, each jab of its broken edge reminding you how much less volume it occupies and that now it
can fit in your car cupholder!
Take one
item at a time in your hand. Can you hold onto it without inexplicably dropping
it? Does the fact that it is intact make you happy or indifferent? If it were
not intact, would you be less joyful? In thinking about it, do you get so
caught up with whether the object sparks joy that you drop it and it breaks?
Now you don’t have to worry about it anymore! Replace the worry with the joy
you’ve sparked.
What you
don’t need, your family doesn’t either
No one like
to receive a garbage bag full of glass shards as a gift. Don’t show up at your
parents’ house with the fragments of your nice serving platter and tell them
that superglue works magic! I once laid a vase in pieces on my sister’s bed and
said “this is brand new and really pretty. And irreparably broken. But if you
don’t take, it I’ll have to throw it away. Are you OK with that?” Invariably,
my sister would tell me to get rid of it immediately, but it served the purpose
of making her be the one to feel bad about throwing it out. Although in
retrospect, it was unkind for to try to pawn it off on her, potentially leaving
sharp shards in her bed. Rule of thumb: if it draws blood unexpectedly, don’t
give it to someone!
Smashing Order
There is a
correct order to getting rid of stuff, starting with things that are easier to
get rid of and eventually getting to more difficult stuff, like clothes, that
don’t break when thrown against a hard surface.
Glass and
ceramic ware
Obviously
start with these. Throughout my illustrious career of breaking shit, this is
usually what I’ve broken. They shatter easily when dropped or even stacked in the
sink! You want to start with the easy stuff. But don’t be satisfied with mere
chipping. If a plate has a chip you can justify keeping it, it has to be in at
least 5 pieces to not make it worth keeping with the thought that someday you
will glue it together and not let it sit and collect dust on the shelf for six
years.
Art
This is
slightly more complicated as sometimes art is not in a frame on the wall,
making it harder to break. Get creative and don’t give up. If you knock the
little wooden masks off the wall every time you put your winter jacket on
(flailing), eventually, they will get so beaten up that you are embarrassed to
keep them. If an object is too large to drop, push a couch into it. Soon, you
will be able to relax in the blissful simplicity of bare and battered white
walls.
Books
Forget
about books, they are extremely hard to break, especially huge hardcover
biology textbooks that are twenty years old (although they are excellent for
breaking other things.) Screw it, just keep your books, even the ones you will
probably never read. Has Augustine been staring back at you from the shelf
since freshman year of undergrad? Ignore him, you aren’t really into
self-flagellating musings on the soul anyway but it makes you look intellectual.
Let them pile up on your bookshelves higgeldy-piggledy because there it no room
to shelve them for all I care. Its books, sheesh.
Clothes
Again,
these don’t really break in the traditional shattering sense. Stuff them haphazardly
into drawers and hide them until you need to dig through them to find a tee
shirt.
Window
dressings
Sometimes
your cheap venetians blinds get so worn and brittle that the mere act of
lowering them can send them toppling down, unrepairable. This is an excellent
opportunity not only to declutter your home, but to strut around in various
states of undress in front of the large window that overlooks the neighborhood.
Think of the stares you will get from the neighbors. “What a tidy home they
have” they will undoubtedly think.
If you
follow this advice, you will be able to live more simply, knowing that
eventually you will only experience the blissful austerity of handle-less
coffee mugs and consuming your wine/cereal/soup in an unbreakable Pyrex measuring
cup. It may sound too difficult, but really, we can all accomplish this with a
little relaxing of our spatial awareness. Human beings can only truly cherish a
number of things at a time, and breaking
them indiscriminately simply removes the decision-making process. And then you
can go about with your life, with fewer intact objects to stand in your way.
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