I recently recounted to a friend who was bemoaning her inability to relax due to work, about what I call the ‘Empty Inbox Syndrome’. It’s not really a syndrome, though, if you ask me, it should be!
Now, I can’t take credit for naming this phenomenon; it actually comes from a stray observation made by a former colleague of mine who noticed my obsession with opening, reading, and then disposing off every email that came my way. Apparently, as soon as I heard the little ‘ding’ on my phone, my shoulders would hunch, my glasses would slide down my nose, and my whole body would be wound tight till every last email had been marked ‘read’. This isn’t exactly news to me - I am well aware of the serotonin kick I get from religiously labeling each email and filing it under the right tab. I also feel an absurd amount of satisfaction deleting spam.
If however, you were to open the drafts folder on any of the 4 email ids I own, you’re bound to see a very different story. This is where I compulsively record every stray thought that has passed through my brain. There is no real reason why these notes haven't been flushed down into some virtual purgatory where all unfinished email drafts go, except I have a deep-seated fear of running out of words when I desperately need them. So, much like the dead that have unfinished business with the living, they linger on, gathering cobwebs on the internet.
This is also an apt metaphor for my life. I am secretly a fan of to-dos. I feel deeply satisfied upon completing self-made to-do lists set against self-set timers. (Can self-motivation become an extreme sport?)
Simon Armitage has an excellent poem titled ‘To Do List’, whose select lines, fashioned like bullet points, go like this:
“Sharpen all pencils. Check off-side rear tire pressure…. Learn one new word per day. …. Draft pro-forma apology letter during meditation session…. Check world ranking. …. Eat (optional). Breathe (optional). …. Gain a pecuniary advantage. … Exceed upper limits. …. Disintegrate.”
If there was ever an anthem for over-thinkers turned to-do listers, this would be it, I think. The poet captures well the utter exhaustion of mental tallying but there is also a strange sick productiveness in knowing you’ve ticked things off a list.
To-do listers unite (and subscribe)!
Speaking of furtive joys, I also happen to have a hoarding instinct. As a hoarder I specialize in finding things that straddle the line between utterly necessary and ‘momentarily-useful-but-now-has-a-nice-backstory-so-can’t-abandon’ (Can you tell I’m a Hufflepuff?). Of the latter, I have many things: a Fujifilm camera that instantly prints photos whose camera roll has not been replaced in years, a Tamagotchi virtual pet that has been languishing in a drawer ever since my cat entered my life (in my defense, this was a purchase bought on by a strong wave of childhood nostalgia), and a bobble-headed keychain that looked cute when I was in my 20s but has now entered middle-aged redundancy.
But nothing is a better metaphor for my hoarding than a pouf-y, frilly, tasseled bubblegum pink dress that I once wore at my oldest cousin’s wedding reception. I first refused to give it away because I deemed it too pretty to part with; later I became convinced my little niece (said cousin’s daughter) would want to wear it. Probably because the threat of this pink monstrosity has (lovingly) hung over her head for much of her childhood, she ultimately took-up crocheting in her teens, and is now a fantastic crochet artist with a dedicated clothing store on Instagram. She also has great taste in clothes. My hoarding clearly has its uses.
I wanted to insert a picture of the OG pink dress, but it has, quite literally, disintegrated. This is the best approximation of it that I could find online. All credits (and my sympathies) to the owner.
Given how to-dos and hoarding seem like polar opposite activities, one would imagine these two instincts to be at war with each other, but in my case, they get along swimmingly well. Because, while my to-doing does not make me any less of a hoarder, it does make me a more mindful one. I came to recognize this mostly during the 2020 COVID lock-down, a good chunk of which I spent alone; I was surrounded by things I did not need immediately, and was desperately trying to procure things I did (cat food, coffee, oxygen cylinders etc). And since poetry is comforting when confronting bad behaviour and mortality, I wrote this (yes, shameless plug):
This pandemic, it is Kondo-ing our lives in a way not intended. Telling us we must settle for lesser and lesser. Forcing us to trade out some things for others. Insisting that we acknowledge what is most essential. In time we shall all be minimalists. Except, as a hoarder besotted with life's old knickknacks, It is hard to know what sparks most joy. - By (my)self
Some side observations:
I looked around for some poetry on email inbox cleaning, and I wasn’t successful. I did however come across some really interesting poetry on cleaning itself, on Hello Poetry. I particularly enjoyed #103, by Jammit Janet, which seems most appropriate for this newsletter. You can check out some of her other pieces too by clicking on her name, for they are fun and lovely :)
Dusting off cobwebs, From the corners of my mind, Giving them the proper love, To disintegrate the grime, That takes me off point, And wastes my time.
On a serious note, hoarding can be a serious medical condition, and is deserving of compassion and mental health support from professionals. I came across this very interesting piece in the Scientific American, on what compulsive hoarding looks like.