The Psychology of Clutter

There’s nothing like company to make a person take a good hard look at their surroundings and see all those weird things that have become so much visual noise and static. I’m having guests this weekend and I can’t wait, though they’ll have to deal with my lack of organization. Right now, I can use the excuse that I’ve just moved, so things are a little jumbled. But, ultimately, I hope that I can eventually achieve some semblance of order.

There’s plenty of space here, and as for shelving, I can always obtain more. I think the big stumbling block for me is not the space or the willingness, but the fact that I’m not quite sure how to categorize certain things, so they just end up residing on the nearest horizontal surface.

It got me to thinking about Vic and Jacob, and their household dynamic. It’s often fun to play Jacob’s blase attitude toward housekeeping for laughs. But, I think it actually reveals something deeper about his personality. It comes down to his ego, big surprise. He tends to strew items around because he feels that his attention is better spent doing more “important” things.

Vic, on the other hand, is an obsessive de-clutter. It’s not because he’s particularly clean. In fact, he often finds pockets of dust, rust, or other sorts of schmutz. For him, it’s more of the fear of being snuck up on that drives his desire for an empty, white space.

[image error]

Clearly, I have no don’t need to worry about getting that stark myself, ha ha.