Excess

I have excess everywhere…

In the fridge, I buy stuff, I don’t have time to eat them all, I throw them away…
In the closet, I buy stuff, then I clean them out, give them away, make space, and then it fills up again…
In toys, I don’t even know when I’m buying them, or others are buying them, and suddenly there’s nowhere to put them, I’m constantly going through them, and they just keep growing…

In my head…this one is the worst because you can’t just choose what’s excessive and throw it away…

I admit, I have no control over the amount of things around me. Occasionally, I really try to sit down, get my shit together, and organize everything. Throw stuff away, make room for new things, arrange them thematically, color-coded, chronological…and then it’s nice, just for a moment, until another pileup comes…

The hardest thing to deal with is probably the mental chaos, because it requires a daily discipline, rutine and organization. Because of the life I’ve chosen, a lot of my interaction with the world takes place online. Connecting with family via WhatsApp, friends via Instagram, and getting news about the world through social media. Last year (and this was also my New Year’s challenge) I reduced the number of accounts I followed and switched to other media to gather information about the world – radio and podcasts. I succeeded quite well. However, the very nature of social media means that every time I open it, something always pops up, opening a new tab in my mind, and leaves me awake and alert, often unconsciously. This is one of the greatest challenges of our times. The ability and discipline to mentally organize information so I still have energy for other important things and simply for life. I don’t even know when it happens, but suddenly I have a series of headlines, posts, and opinions in my head that make no sense to me. Maybe for a moment they gave me the feeling that I know what’s going on in the world, even though I don’t really know any of the details. I can’t quite put it all together. Only impulses and emotions surface – „this is good,” this is „not good,” this evokes fear, this gives hope, and that’s it. The sheer number of open pages, unprocessed, without in-depth reflection, rattles around in my head, creating chaos and fueling anxiety. I don’t reflect on these topics when they arise; I just accumulate them, expending a ton of energy on this accumulation, and what I need is some kind of outlet, digestion, and closure.

A few days ago, I sat at the table with Alina, and we chatted word by word, about work, crises, ideas for the future, films, people… we sat and weaved thread by thread, slowly connecting, word by word. Then I realized that this one spontaneous conversation gave me exactly what I needed, something I forget about on a daily basis. During the slow exchange of thoughts, listening, and responding, the chaos fell into place. I managed to work through the various ideas and threads that had been lingering in my head and had accumulated over the past two weeks. I didn’t even realize how many connections there were—that scene from the movie, that article, that conversation, that song, that quote…it turned out that my attention lingered (even for a microsecond) on similar threads, everything oscillating around a thought that was slowly forming within me. But I couldn’t put it together because I didn’t have the time or space for it. And suddenly, half an hour, maybe a little longer, and one engaged person were enough for the peace and inspiration to emerge from the chaos.

I know it’s hard to find such places and spaces for quiet reflection, and I also know that it’s absolutely essential for normal functioning and not going crazy.
I hope for myself and for you that we find the time and kind people around us to help each other sort out this chaos. Systematically wrap up topics, or at least digest them a bit. Because then everything immediately feels lighter and somehow different. Better, calmer, and easier to live with.