A couple of days ago, I did my roughly-annual check of clothing to see what should be resold, put in a charity bag, or thrown away. Normally, this is a quick task, as I’m not someone who owns mountains of clothes *1.  (Also, I pretty much have the wardrobe of a cartoon character – whether I’m at home, at work, or socialising, I will be wearing the same type of outfit 95% of the time).

This time, the clothes-check was slower than usual, as I felt irrationally guilty about throwing away two specific long-lived items. Trying to figure out why I felt guilty led me down a wandering trail of thoughts, where I learned and reflected more than I expected to. So, in recognition of the thought-trip that followed this throwing-away, and partly inspired by Tom Scott’s “hoodie.mp4“, I’m going to preserve both the things and what I learnt from them digitally rather than physically.

The two specific things are: a) a Mass Effect t-shirt and b) a grey checked shirt.

Firstly, the checked shirt. I know that I bought it during one of the first times I visited my mum after she moved house, so my best guess is that its from 2013-2014.

I had worn it nearly to death; the fabric had become so thin and bobbly that the outside of the shirt looked like it should have been the inside. As it was teenager-sized (a rare perk of being a short adult), the sleeves weren’t long enough, so I could only ever wear it with the sleeves rolled up and buttoned. So it wasn’t even particularly practical – despite that, in previous clear-outs I had chosen to keep it in place of other shirts that were more useful.

Secondly, the t-shirt. I can’t put an exact age on it, because I got it during a period of time when I was so closed-off from the world that saying I had bought a new t-shirt based on an interest would have been too human a piece of information to share with anyone. However, I can guess that bought it in 2011-2012, as that’s around when I first played the original Mass Effect. The t-shirt had already been demoted to pyjamas for a couple of years, but after counting 6 different holes in it during this last check, it was starting to fail at that role too.

I’m familiar with feeling guilty if I donate something that I bought and then didn’t wear because it wasn’t right or wasn’t comfortable. In those cases, I’ve worked out that the guilt comes from feeling like I wasted the item, especially now I know of the problems caused by landfilled wasted clothes and the plethora of donated items shipped overseas.

Logically this wasn’t the case here, as these two items had not been wasted. I realised that my response wasn’t solely environmental guilt, but more of a personal sadness – the best description I can give is that it felt like I’d been cruel to the items by ending their existence. *2

Figuring out this response was confusing, partly because I don’t think that’s a typical response to have, and mostly because I never used to get emotional about objects or small situations in general in that way. Past-me, especially the 2011-2013 version, was more often confused by or dismissive of emotionality.

Thinking about this further to try and figure it out reminded me of just how different, and dysfunctional, my past self was in regard to emotions. That version of me was embarrassed to be observed caring, scared of having emotions about anything, and cynically judgemental of mine or others’ vulnerability. If 18-year-old me saw a blog post from someone having emotions at throwing away a piece of clothing, they’d scornfully assume that person couldn’t have had any real problems … while also being deeply, resentfully jealous of that person for being able to take up that kind of space and talk about themselves and their feelings when it wasn’t important.

Remembering that version of me felt uncomfortable, but being able to do it uncomfortably is better than my former approach of not being able to do it at all. Now, I’m self-aware enough to detect that I’m experiencing those emotions and to understand what they are, rather than treating them as alarm bells to ignore or push away. I’m also now glad that past-me didn’t talk very much, as it reduced my chances of inflicting that resentment upon others!

What I’ve been trying to say, in a circuitous way, is that deciding to end the lifespan of those clothes and then analysing my response to that made me aware of how different I am, in certain ways, from the me who first bought them. More importantly than that, it made me aware that I am actually able to go back and do that reflecting and digging somewhat objectively now, when I used to find the idea too overwhelming and hide from it. It means that my current, more emotional, self is also somehow the more rational self as well.

This was not the way I expected to learn something useful, but surprise learning is still learning!

Footnotes

*1 While I was interested in the philosophy of minimalism a few years ago, I would never fully have called myself a minimalist. I moved away from reading and learning about the philosophy after noticing that a) I often turned to reducing items or collections as the result of anxious guilt about having things, wasting things, or having dared to have enjoyable things, and b) I found the way that online communities and people started to brand and commodify minimalism, and focus on it as an aesthetic, off-putting and counterproductive.

*2 After watching some of “Tidying Up with Marie Kondo” a few years ago, I found her values of respecting each item, identifying what you learnt from it, and thanking it for its service very interesting. To be clear, I don’t know much about Shinto Buddhism, and I don’t literally believe that everything has an animate essence, but the overall idea of emphasising respect and care for things seems like a good way of both being more reflective and reducing materialism.