Stuff and nonsense

I AM drowning.

Not literally, obviously. I’m not writing this while simultaneously toiling against a treacherous tide, the improbable attempt at multi-tasking gradually overwhelming me until I finally surrender, my lungs slowly filling with water as I sink to the seabed, still clutching my laptop.

Don’t be absurd.

What I mean is I’m drowning metaphorically. In stuff. My house is full of it. Kids’ toys and trinkets, gadgets and gizmos, clothes and shoes, piles of paper and pieces of plastic. Cluttering up surfaces and floors and bursting out of cupboards and bags.

I know, I know – I need to Marie Kondo the hell out of it. And I will. Tomorrow. Which, as we all know, never comes.

I don’t know how other people do it. Minimalism and young children just seems to be an impossible combination. Do the majority of families really have permanently pristine pads, or is it all a pretence for the benefit of visitors and social media?

I did attempt a half-hearted clear-out back in December and managed to remove several sacks of ‘stuff’ from the property, bound for charity shops, recycling centres and clothing banks. Some might have even made it to Sweden along with the rest of the island’s waste – the kind of pre-pandemic travelling we can merely dream about right now.

A sense of clutter-free calm momentarily descended on the house. Everything had a place and a purpose. We could find things we needed. We could swan serenely from room to room without stumbling on so much as a stray Lego brick.

But then along came Christmas and it turned out that, despite all the threats, the children were very much on the nice list, so several sacks of new stuff arrived and I was back to square one. Thanks Santa.

And then things got a gazillion times worse when Guernsey went into lockdown, swiftly followed by the whole family having to go into isolation. Suddenly, we were all stuck working, playing and eating within the same four walls. All. Day. Long. With no escape.

Attempts at home schooling gave rise to new piles of paper, decorated with drawings, creative writing and mathematical equations, scattered among the seemingly never-ending swell of junk modelling creations, sat atop a carpet of tiny snips of paper, scraps of cardboard, glitter and glue.

They say a tidy house creates a tidy mind, so I dread to imagine the mess mine’s in. I’m expecting my brain to explode any day now.

Those who think being in lockdown should mean I have stacks of extra time on my hands to make my surroundings spick and span seriously underestimate two things. Firstly, I’m still working full-time but, since my home ‘office’ comes complete with slower connectivity and increased distractions, it takes significantly more time to get my work done. Secondly, children swallow up time like a Dementor sucks souls – there is barely a minute in the day when one of them is not demanding attention, entertainment, education, mediation or sustenance.

I’ve tried to make ‘tidying up’ into a fun kids’ game but I was fooling no one, least of all myself.

The only reason I’m managing to write this is because I’ve lured them into another room, surrounded by sugary snacks and supervised by some potentially dubious random strangers on YouTube. (Pro-parenting tip there. You’re welcome.)

Before you offer it, I’m not hankering after help or advice.

I can assure you I’ve already explored the problem from every conceivable angle and I’m pretty sure the only solution is to tear the place down and start again.

Of course, all this is very much a First World problem and I’m well aware of how crass it is to complain about being in the fortunate position of having too much, when there are so many people in the world with not enough. I truly am grateful and try not to take my situation for granted.

But it’s the futility and unapologetic commercialism of much of the ‘stuff’ that drives me crazy.

The same old toys are reinvented and redesigned every year simply so that we’ll never run out of gift ideas for our offspring – we will never, ever reach that nirvana of being able to say, ‘you know what, I think you’ve got all the toys now, there are actually no more left to buy’.

There will always be more. It will never end.

And it’s not restricted to children’s toys.

Global corporations are constantly thinking up new ways to persuade us to part with our cash in exchange for more unnecessary items. Products that promise impossibly miraculous results, or gadgets that essentially do the same things as those we already own but in new ways or while sporting new colours or designs.

And we keep falling for it. (I say ‘we’ in the vain hope that I’m not alone in this. Please tell me I’m not alone in this.)

While the global pandemic has devastated many people’s lives and livelihoods in the past year, Covid-19 has proved to be no match for the power of the mammoth multi-national companies such as Apple, Amazon, Microsoft and Facebook, which have instead seen their profits soar.

We simply can’t get enough of the latest tech – and with lockdowns and travel restrictions forcing everything online, that’s unlikely to change any time soon.

But are we just being suckered into a cycle of unnecessary upgrades? From fast fashion to kitchen appliances, to state-of-the-art phones, the secret to success in business is to convince people to keep buying from you, again and again. That means either selling things that won’t last for long or bringing out new, irresistible products on a regular basis.

Advertising is key to this as people will spend big money if you make them believe something will have a positive impact on them – perhaps a new food that will make them healthier or happier, an outfit that will make them slimmer or trendier, or tech that will make their life easier or more exciting.

Even if you know it sounds too good to be true, it can be hard to resist.

Beauty products are my personal downfall. It doesn’t matter how many times a face cream fails to rid me of my wrinkles, a new shampoo neglects to add the expected shine to my tresses or a concealer resolutely refuses to hide the dark bags beneath my eyes, there’s a little voice at the back of my mind that insists that maybe, just maybe, the next one will be ‘the one’. The one that will actually work. Might as well try it. What have I got to lose?

The answer is: quite a bit actually. Money that I can’t really afford. Trust. Hope. Self-respect. And let’s not forget space, since all these half-used and abandoned products have to go somewhere (and they’re far too pricey to simply throw away).

Then there are the beauty gadgets that might possibly do the job they promise, but the sustained time and effort required to reap those results is too onerous for me to find out for sure. Step forward hair removal laser. One day, when I’m 83, I might finally have enough time on my hands to put you to good use. I am sure it will be worth the wait.

But deep down I know that even if all this stuff did work, it wouldn’t make any real difference to me. I’d still be living the same life, albeit I’d be looking a bit more awesome while I did it. I wouldn’t be any more contented or care-free than I already am. Those who love me wouldn’t love me any better.

Because it’s true what they say: money can’t buy happiness. (That said, if there’s a product out there that really WILL make me look awesome, please send it my way. Just, you know, for research purposes.)