Marie Kondo and the joy of pre-love

There is a lot of noise on social media about this Marie Kondo Netflix series on tidying up and sparkling joy. I haven’t watched it yet. To be honest, I got so bored of Bandersnatch that I haven’t logged into Netflix in a while now. It sparks joy in my mind to avoid that app these days.

Anyway, I do not generally agree with this philosophy of saying goodbye to things we love. Or people we love, for that matter. I hoard what I love, and I throw away what I don’t. In fact, I am such a ruthless thrower-awayer of things that I wonder if I love anything at all. Except books. And, I hear that Kondo has suggested we throw away books too. So, I don’t like her. Throwing her away from my mind now.

All this talk about love for objects, and joy in tidying up, sparks a completely different thread of angst in me. Do you know what’s fashionable these days? Pre-loving and pre-caring for things. Darn it, this phrase ‘second-hand’ has been made obsolete and very second-class, no one uses it anymore. Except for with used cars. Yet to hear someone say “My pre-loved car is up for grabs.”

I mean, even grammatically, ‘pre-loved’ doesn’t seem to make much sense. What does ‘pre-loved’ mean? That I don’t love it anymore? That it is pre- my love and I will love it once I sell it to you? That it was created before love came into existence?

And you know where it is used the most? With baby stuff. People are always selling their kids’ pre-loved toys and pre-loved furniture and pre-loved car seats. Now, I have my share of baby stuff. As soon as our kid turned 6 months, V and I promptly landed up at the baby store to purchase bed, high chair, and stroller, without any view of where we will hold it in our very Bombay apartment. While my baby is super special to me and I consider her a very unique being, she is exactly the same as 90% of the babies in this world (the other 10% I am told are raised by parents who read books like ‘How to talk so little kids will listen’). So, coming back to my baby, she is very predictable – doesn’t use any of these new-fangled things mama and papa got her with much love, and a significant pocket outlay.

So, I look at these things with anything but love. That stroller, especially that stroller. It’s this white elephant in the drawing room, only grey in color. I would willingly throw it out with the bathwater (without the baby), especially at the next person who utters the phrase ‘pre-love’. The only thing stopping me is that significant pocket outlay. I am told kids use the stroller when they are 4-5 years old and too lazy to walk, especially on holidays outside India. Maybe, I will wait till then, while building a lot of angst up every time I see that stroller next to my much-loved bookrack.

By the time I internalize the concept of sunk cost and opportunity cost at space wastage, it might become my pre-hated item. That’s at least a differentiated value proposition for a sale, for whatever it is worth.