Clean out books. For those who love them, the printed works for browsing and sinking for hours, this formulation is a horror. For a long time, I felt the same way - until I once wondered what books really meant to me.
About book love and minimalism
I used to think they didn't exist on such a large scale, the bibliophiles, the book lovers. The people who can't imagine anything more beautiful than sinking into a new book over a cup of warm tea. Those who love the crackling of the pages. Who has no problem with yellowish paper? Those who stick their nose deep between the pages and inhale the scent of the book. They are in love with the black and white columns of letters on paper.
Fortunately, the Internet has given us one thing above all else: a digital community. And so, with the conquest of this parallel realist web, my awareness has grown that with my great and long-lasting passion for books, I am not quite as alone as I thought I would be. And I think that's wonderful.
I have already sung about my love for books in detail here, so this article will now focus on a completely different matter, which is strongly related to bibliophilia and minimalism.
The problem is: as simple as I have put these two terms - minimalism and bibliophilia - into one sentence, they cannot be united at all. As a rule, one even has the feeling (especially as an affected person) that they contradict each other completely.
Because the thing is this: If you are particularly fond of something, you tend to want to own it. Sometimes these are purely power-abiding and egoistic motives (imperialism, colonialism and such things), but sometimes also simply the joy of the thing itself, which one has now appropriated and on which one looks full of pride and love.
As it is written on the shelf. And it stands. And stands. And it still stands. And presumably still stands untouched for the next ten years. Because once read, most books don't actually do more than - stand in the average household and possibly dust down. But that was probably it then, too.
(By the way, I have no problem with coffee stains on my favorites. It's also easier to relax in this household, where I find coffee cups in every imaginable place - just not in the sink.)
Isn't that a sad life? An almost unworthy one? When you think about the effort that is put into making a book (still!) - tree felling, paper making, everything unbelievably many times back and forth boats, paint making, printing, binding and so on. And all this just for a pair of eyes buzzing through the lines, absorbing them and then perhaps forgetting them immediately? If not now, then in a few years at the latest?
And even if the reader should never forget what he or she has read, what right does the book have to exist on the bookshelf? If it was so good that I don't forget the content and will always carry it with me - wouldn't it be more social and moral to give other people the same pleasure and let them participate in the work?
Here theory and practice differ - the gap between the above knowledge (which every one has with a fully equipped home library, certainly!) and the practical consequences is huge.
Book Hamster Past
Before I started to deal with minimalism in more detail (do you know my trigger yet? It was none other than Bea Johnson herself), I was one of those people who hang on to every book they ever held in their hands.
I wasn't allowed to go to a bookstore with a credit card - that was about as risky as the cliché that most women are usually accused of when buying shoes (by the way, I think that's a complete nonsense).
Every week I brought along new books - genres didn't interest me at that time (like today) for the most part. I read everything that comes into my eyes. (Except trashy novels. And would-be non-fiction books. So everything that just gossips and smells of exaggerated commerce.)
And because I was convinced for a long time in my life that my love for books was expressed in the number of printed possessions in my apartment, I collected for years. I kept collecting, everything I could get: Grab-table books, gifts, bought, borrowed from the public bookcase (and - ahem! - not-returned).
So when we moved almost a year ago, we had to carry huge quantities of book boxes - a total of about 30 boxes, filled to the brim with printed material for reading. With the subtle difference that they were never read. Instead, they were about to move from bookcase a) to bookcase b) - pulled out, put into the box, put back out of the box, put back. And again not looked at for years. Until the next move was due.
When I saw these many boxes, it already dawned on me that things could not go on like this. My beloved books threatened to suffocate me (and Mr. Grünzeug) in the apartment. They took up so much space. Something had to change.
To be continued ...