/ Objects /
Look around your home for a moment - we are surrounded by objects. Objects that are tools, accessories, accents to what has become our way of life.
More often than not, I notice the sheer amount of these objects when I set about to clean. That's when I begin to feel torn between the ideas of minimalism, essentialism and optimization weighed against the growing materialistic habits. I do make an effort to buy stuff that I think, truly adds value to my life, but this guilt is turning into a constant companion, lurking in the background.
Is there a right amount of things one should or can own? What is a better or worse strategy when it comes to filling up our lives and homes with more things?
While this thread of thought was going on in my head, I came across this in the book I am reading -
“And not one thing has changed since those childhood summers, but with Aaji gone, the quiet walls have the eloquence of a shrine, and the four-poster that was pirate ship and the Singer sewing machine that was Kedar’s, the weight of idols.
In the bathroom, hanging from a spigot, is Aaji’s pumice foot scrubber. He runs a thumb over its rough edge, misses the cracked heels he massaged as she told him stories from the epics. Time, the stone whispers, time, time, time.”
And my favourite part -
“Now he gets the value of the everyday stuff in the Peshwa museums. What is the culture of a place or people other than this - how we lived and how we died? What is an identity butt an accretion of all those sensations, however fleeting or slight, aroused by every encounter with the world that tells you where and among whom you belong… or do not?”
Excerpt from Quarterlife by Devika Rege
It was an instance where the words of an author resonate so much and you think, this is what you have been wanting to say all along and you couldn't find the right words or the right way to put those words in.
“What is the culture of a place or people other than this - how we lived and how we died?” Devika has put it so beautifully, and in such a simple way.
This got me thinking - maybe, these objects that I collect in succession, with so much love, are integral to how I live. They are the mute witnesses to my time here and unacknowledged extensions to my self. Some are replaced over time, some are life-long companions, and some, left behind by somebody beloved, give a sense of comfort.
We are emotional beings after all and we do get attached to things, and feel a certain way about everything including the coterie of objects that we assemble around us. Choosing them with thought and care is the only realistic way I can think of to go about it.