If there is anything more promising for the general happiness of contemporary Americans than Tidying Up with Marie Kondo, I am unaware of it. Forgive the superlative language, but there really is something going on here. First, look what Kondo has to work with: the homes she visits are peopled by loving couples who are being slowly estranged from each other by an ineradicable patriarchy, parents who are gradually trading their hopes for their children’s upbringings for the hope of just getting by, and children surrounded by stuff but missing out on the acquisition of everyday life skills because their parents are too busy or too emotionally taxed to show them what to do – in other words, everyday American life. But look at Kondo as she nonchalantly stands on kitchen countertops, reorganizing cupboards and thereby dissolving marital tensions. There is all this talk of “work” as the families undertake the tidying together, building camaraderie in the process. And there’s something so eminently practical and non-consumerist about Kondo’s approach: in one episode, “The Downsizers,” a brother and sister struggle with keeping their bedroom tidy, mostly because their clothes are stored haphazardly on a freestanding shelving unit. This being reality television (even if it is on the Internet), you would expect Kondo’s “magic” to come in the form of a dramatic makeover, with ample closets and clever built-ins. Instead, she sits down with the family on the floor of the children’s bedroom and teaches them to fold the clothes, just so, and place them in one of the assorted shoeboxes she has provided for this purpose. The shoeboxes, she explains, are only for temporary storage, presumably until the family can scrape together enough time or money to go buy a dresser. But the family members are amazed. “That’s unbelievable!” the father cries out, as if Kondo has worked out the mystery of living among material things, which she probably has. Maybe there is hope for America after all.
WHAT IS HAPPINESS? 