Making do is a deeply pragmatic philosophy. It means asking of our things the only question we should ever ask of them: “Can you fulfill your intended use for me?” The answer – if we can be honest, and resist a moment of discomfort, inconvenience or boredom – is, extraordinarily often, yes. Making do is about taming the reflex to discard, replace or upgrade; it’s about using things well, and using them until they are used up. Taken literally, it simply means making something perform – making it do what it ought to do.
If Marie Kondo delights in discarding, making do is about agonizing over it, admitting that we probably should not have bought that thing in the first place. Instead of thanking our outgoing goods for their meagre service, per Ms. Kondo, making do means admonishing ourselves for being so thoughtless in the first place. Ditching something costs us, ecologically and cosmically; it should sting. And it should teach us to think more carefully about the real value of things.
It always starts with the joy of owning garment.
With wear, it grows into the joy of using the garment.
Over time, it’s the joy of intimacy you develop with the garment.
After a point in time, the joy of using it up fully, is larger than the joy derived from the garment itself.
You enjoy them more because you enjoy them longer.
I could relate to this article : The life-changing magic of making do. This mindset is necessary if we want to tackle the ecological crisis we are in.
I re-read it today after I made my declutter pile.
“Can I resist the discomfort / inconvenience / boredom from these items ?”
Yes, I can.
Slowly, most of the pile made it’s way back into the closet.
The one thing that remained are these jeans.
They started off as skinny leg. They then became straight leg. Then became boyfriend jeans. Then came the holes and thread bare patches. Then came the rips. Now, they are completely stretched out and look sloppy. This is the only garment from the pile that is worn out in some sense of the what the word means. Like Marie Kondo suggests, I thanked them for their service. I hope you get picked up from the thrift shop and fit the next person better. I hope you become insulation for a building someday. I hope you become a rag in someones household. I hope you go into a compost pile and not the landfill. I am supposed to be responsible for your lifecycle because I summoned you into existence. But I am washing you off of my hands and trusting an imperfect recycling system. It stings.
