"Quarter of denial"/ "Downsizing tough when kids don't want stuff parents offer"

May 5, 2018 "Quarter of denial": Today I found this article by Fish Griwkowsky in the Edmonton Journal:

Watching footage of over 1,000 people lining up outside the new outlet mall by the airport Wednesday, I felt weird and, honestly, a sense of pity. Not for them, but for something way bigger that’s apparently missing.

And while I bet there were plenty of fun conversations in that human caterpillar — maybe people even made new friends — they didn’t really go there to be social, some in line since midnight.

No, let’s be frank — they were there to fill some need with stuff. Always more stuff.

And I get it. As a onetime addicted collector and pure-reflex shopper, the idea of making big sacrifices of time and resource for future junk is nothing I’m sneering at — that would be utter hypocrisy. Hooked on Adidas, I’m a Star Wars junkie Lego maniac who can’t leave Chapters without at least a National Geographic.

Yet so far, in the year 2018, I haven’t bought a single possession-oriented, consumer object. No books, no clothes, no records. And I have to say: it’s rewired my brain in surprising ways.

You might recall I’ve played the Minimalism Game for a couple of years now — that’s where you get rid of 496 things over a month — salting it with some of Marie Kondo’s hilarious clean-up rituals of thanking unlistening objects for their service. “Thank you Ziggy handcuffs, you made me whole!”

I interviewed Joshua Fields — one of the OG Minimalists — about building up decluttering muscles, and somehow even snagged an international award from Society of Features Journalism for my daily series about it in the Journal.

But what do you know: that piece of paper was another object. And it needed a frame. And guess what else kept happening?

Every time I earned a little space on the counter, storage room or clothes rack during the giveaway month, I Tetrised it up again the next 11.

So when with faltering hope I asked my friend Janis Galloway if she wanted to play the Minimalism Game again in December, she pointed out an article by Ann Patchett of the New York Times: “My Year of No Shopping.”

Galloway explains, “I looked around my apartment and thought I really don’t have enough to get rid of — maybe I was in denial — but I think I was being kind of judgy and asked, ‘Why are you able to do this again?’

“How can we look at the root of the actual problem — which is buying stuff?”

This is where things got interesting. In Patchett’s article, she lays down parameters, brick by brick: “I wanted a plan that was serious but not so draconian that I would bail out in February, so while I couldn’t buy clothing or speakers, I could buy anything in the grocery store, including flowers. 

I could buy shampoo and printer cartridges and batteries but only after I’d run out of what I had. I could buy plane tickets and eat out in restaurants. I could buy books because I write books and I co-own a bookstore and books are my business.”

To feel the pain, Janis and I decided we’d be way more strict: allowing food, drinks, medicine — consumables, in other words — and anything experiential was fair game, too: going to a hockey game, an Avengers movie … as long as we didn’t bring home a T-Shirt. And that was it, nothing else.

She pitched we do this for a year. Terrified, I offered a month. We settled on three, with the pathetic caveat that my wife buy, um, “our household” my favourite film magazine, Little White Lies, every month.

January 1, we began, calling the three months the Quarter of Denial. Galloway thought: “I’m going to be able to do it. But I struggled.

“The first month was really easy, the second got harder — and then I cheated. I gave in a week before it was over and bought new sunglasses.”

Why did she give up? “I don’t know. It’s a great question. But,” she adds, “I actually cheated right away, by accident.

“The brand is called Thinx,” she explains, “they’re period panties — the purpose of them is to create no-waste periods. Great company, amazing idea — but I didn’t need to buy them.”

Without even thinking about it, she clicked a pair her way online. “And I didn’t even realize I had bought them till the next day. I think there’s something interesting that goes on in your head when you’re online — it almost doesn’t even feel like you’re buying something.”

Even mentioning this story has gotten me yelled at repeatedly as some sort of menstruation-shaming swamp boar, but I took Galloway’s word that this didn’t fit in her idea of “exactly necessary,” for which we were both aiming.

“I failed,” she laughs. “I had a drawer full of tampons.”

As president of PR firm Publicity Room, she works with Fashion Revolution — which examines the social impact of our belief in near-disposable clothing. “We’re not saying, ‘Get rid of every piece of fashion you have — throw it out!’ We’re saying, ‘Wear it and use it because someone made it.’”

Someone is bound to think these ideas are anti-capitalism, even antisocial — we’re programmed to. Aside from a decades-long advertising conspiracy to make us feel like we’re not good enough unless we buy any number of products, I can certainly speak to the “antisocial” accusation with a couple of examples.

First off, since January, I’ve made my wife’s life harder: “Can you go to the mall and pick up … oh right. Your ‘thing.’” This is not to accuse her of anything, she’s the best — but try this exercise, and you’re suddenly a puzzle piece that doesn’t fit into the modern world. I even argued against buying Drano at one point during what I’ll just refer to as the ‘Pickle Incident.’

My friend and I also used to hit Record Collector’s Paradise weekly. I still didn’t mind going and looking, and he even seemed to appreciate when I’d find a rare record and hand it to him instead. But, somehow, the invites trickled off.

Then there are my friends who own retail spaces, one of whom noted, with a cackle, “You’re killing me!”

Also, of course, there was the initial shame when I told my dad I was going to give not buying anything frivolous a shot. “Sounds like my childhood.”

Well, yeah — I’ve been literally homeless and jobless, too, and one of the initial reasons I felt so little existential angst doing this was it just reminded me of not having enough money. You get creative, start sewing your toe-turtling socks, borrowing things. 

And I cannot for the life of me think there’s anything wrong with experiencing this, if you’re lucky enough to not usually have to.

Galloway noted the experience had a similar effect on her — she started regularly going to the library again. “I love the library!

“My shopping behaviours have already changed a lot. Why do we shop so much? A), it feels good — there’s a dopamine kick when you buy something new. The sunglasses, I could’ve gone to Goodwill — or borrowed some from my best friend.

“The fact you can not even think about buying something is interesting to me. We live in a culture of so much privilege that I can use shopping as a leisurely activity.

“I‘ve been thinking a lot about that.”

After Janis left did the experiment for three months, I did it for another month, just to see if it would eventually hurt — I now seem to be into month five, definitely cooking more and figuring out how to sew up my worn clothes.

If you think you’re up to the challenge by your own rules, I can’t recommend it enough.

http://edmontonjournal.com/entertainment/local-arts/quarter-of-denial-not-buying-stuff-tackles-minimalism-at-the-source

May 23, 2019 "Downsizing tough when kids don't want stuff parents offer": Today I found this article by Denise Crosby in the Star Metro:

Every time I enter the blue tiled bathroom off the back door of my home I think about my mom, my millennial offspring and the overflowing shelves at the Goodwill.

In that bathroom, displayed next to the outdated mahogany vanity, is a wall hanging featuring shocks of wheat in black silhouette —a not-inexpensive piece of art my sister and I bought for our mother for Christmas one year while we were in college and existing on a ramen noodles budget.

Ever the artist herself, Mom immediately custom tailored the background of this already unique wall hanging in fabrics that matched her living room decor. Then she proudly hung it above the new couch Dad finally let her buy, where it remained in a place of honour for almost three decades.

Here’s where the kids and thrift store come in to play. No doubt like you, I’ve been reading a lot about the need for baby boomers to begin downsizing so the next generation won’t be left to deal with all our possessions that over the years somehow morph from treasures into junk.

And I’ve also been reading about how those Gen- Xers and millennials (I produced both) are shunning our would- be hand- me- downs, telling Mom and Dad or Grandma and Grandpa they don’t want the brown dining room table and hutch or those delicate sets of china or the sterling silver candle holders or all the other items we gladly accepted from previous generations with the intent of passing them along.

Auctioneers and appraisers, junk haulers and moving companies all seem to be echoing the same thing: The market is flooded with baby boomer rejects. 

And they cite a number of reasons our kids are turning down the possessions we so generously offer to them. They rent rather than own, live in smaller spaces, collect more digital than physical items and tend to put their money toward experiences rather than things.

Now, instead of gazing upon my mother’s beloved wheat art with sentimentality, I get anxious ... wondering where the heck it’s going to end up when my own walls come tumbling down.

There’s an old writer’s phrase — “slay your darlings” — which means tossing out our favourite words which serve no purpose. 

On the other hand, the gospel according to declutter guru Marie Kondo gives us a little more permission to keep the things that bring us joy.

But any joy that wheat silhouette has given me over the years is dulled by the thought of it laying in a pile at the Goodwill. It’s chipped and it’s worn, so it will probably look right at home. But as long as I’m hanging around, so shall Mom’s art.