Decluttering and Democracy

Decluttering has been a constant in my life since April 2017, when I was caught up in the terror attack in Stockholm. My first thought when I was trapped in the basement of the building was ‘if I die my cats will starve‘ and ‘who is going to have to go through my clutter.‘

As soon as I could, I started decluttering. Everything that had been left behind after my divorce and after my stepkids moved into their own apartments. Cables, clothes, books, cutlery, crockery, papers, electronics. It took me a year to do it, bit by bit. A year after that I moved in with my now-husband, so I took the opportunity to downsize even further. When we moved into our present apartment in 2020, we took the opportunity to take inventory and purge. Since then, I have done personal downsizing – beauty products, clothes, textbooks, handbags, jewellery and accessories, novels, magazines. I have sold, donated, recycled and repurposed.

I am at the point now where it is one-in-one-out. Most of the clothing and accessories I am attracted to in the sales are similar to things I already own. Things that are not similar to things I already own are things that would not suit me or things I would not wear. Having downsized so much, I can see gaps in my wardrobe now, and fill just those.

But it is an ongoing process. A constant awareness, my little wise voice – you don’t need another black t shirt, even if it is cheap. Read all your magazines before buying new ones. If you buy this cute coffee cup, which tired one can go out?

Marriage also needs constant work. Carving out personal time, keeping romance going, communication, compromises. My first marriage failed because we could not communicate or compromise and one day we realised we were strangers.

Language learning is also constant work, like getting fit, losing weight or going to the gym. It’s not one or done. Many companies invest in intensive courses for their staff but not the top-up lessons afterwards. They then wonder why the new fluency gained after the intensive course is gone in a year. You have to work at it, day by day.

And finally, what most people don’t seem to realise these days, sadly, is that democracy is also constant work. You cannot achieve or declare democracy and then putter off and go and do something else. You cannot invade a non-democratic country, say we’ve freed you. Now go off and be democratic’. So many countries that were looked up to as beacons of democracy are not democratic anymore. Because there are corrupt influences, there are extremists, there is social media brainrot and there are mentally unstable people with too much money and power. We are looking at too many countries now who did not cherish, protect and take stewardship of their democracy. They did not set boundaries and hold those boundaries against people who don’t realise how hard-won democracy is South Africa is an example of that, as are too many countries these days.

I often think these days of the boiling frog analogy, where changes are so small that we don’t notice them until it’s too late.

The boiling frog analogy is a metaphor where a frog placed in boiling water jumps out immediately, but if placed in cool water that is slowly heated, it won’t notice the danger until it’s too late and gets boiled to death, illustrating how people often fail to react to significant negative changes that occur gradually. It warns against complacency, showing how small, incremental problems in jobs, relationships, or society can become catastrophic before being recognized, urging individuals to pay attention to slow-developing threats.