Burdened by the aesthetics of things

We've forgotten that real life has clutter, chaos and isn't content-ready

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Sitting on a bench at my childhood home, I take a photo of myself after a run. I am red-faced and salt-skinned, but joyous at the fact that my body can now do something it once couldn’t. It’s not a particularly flattering photo, but there’s something about the moment I want to capture: the swelling heat of the evening, the clattering kitchen sounds my mother is making, my father just out of sight, busying himself in the garden. Contentment, indirect company, and endorphins pumping away in my pulse. 

In the corner of the photo I’ve taken, I notice a blue tangle of rope around the shoulder of the bench I am sitting on. My immediate reaction is to take the photo again, without the rope. But the second photo defeats the point of the first. I am no longer capturing the moment, but refining it. Tailoring it to be shared, as though on autopilot. 

I remember this rope well, though I haven’t paid it any real attention in years. We used to clip it to the collar of our first dog, Griffin, when my Grandfather’s dog came to visit. If one of them were not tethered to this blue stretch of rope, they would run away together and cause chaos. The memory of that time, of those dastardly, conspiratorial terriers, makes me happy. The ugliness of the rope has no place in the reflection. It is unimportant.

I begin to look around me, taking in countless other ugly things that would never make it to the glossy canvas of my Instagram, TikTok or Strava pages. To my left, a mossy garden trug with a small, sour apple in it. My father collects these when they fall, too early, from the trees in his orchard. He uses them to throw at pigeons, which - for reasons known only to her - make our current dog, Dusty, very cross when they land in the garden. She comes to me now, leaping onto my lap, back from some evening scurry. I rake my nails over her hot little back, shedding her eyelash-hairs across my pale grey top. More perfect imperfections. 

There are many benefits to sharing our lived experiences online. Other people’s lives can inspire us, make us laugh, and help us to feel less alone in our struggles. But there is a physical cleanliness that goes hand in hand with what we share. The hiking content creators all have brand-new boots and made-up faces. The gardening influencers have clean nails and knees. The cosy lifestyle girls have pressed pyjamas and no visible laundry basket. 

And the cleaner our content, the more we want to recoil from mess and clutter. It’s cyclical. 

“A really good life is lived in the dirt under your nails, the sweat on your brow, the unattractive clutter that jolts good memories or makes us laugh”

Occasionally, I’ll find myself envying people who have wipe-clean homes with white walls and a place for every trinket. In my house, you can’t move for a loud fridge magnet, a garish patterned quilt, or one of Dusty’s very chewed, much-treasured toys. But isn’t that sad? To want to remove the lived-in quality of your life to make it more shareable to strangers? Homes are supposed to have some amount of clutter, gardening is supposed to be a dirty job, running makes our face sweaty, hiking will make your boots dirty, and we do not wake up with our pyjamas ironed.     

As a fundamentally tidy person, I could never live in squalor. But I do think, as a result of social media, we are becoming too burdened by the aesthetics of things.

I’m no better than anyone else with this—I need to be reminded not to shoot and reshoot a photo that was taken for love of the moment, or to always be finding the corner of the house plain enough for a photo of my home-cooked meal. Because, in reality, a really good life is lived in the dirt under your nails, the sweat on your brow, the unattractive clutter that jolts good memories or makes us laugh.

I think it’s important to remember to dig your fingers into the muck now and again. Post the stupid rope, the peeling paint, the embarrassing mug. Life is rarely a shoot location. And wouldn’t it be boring if it were?

Do you find yourself feeling embarrassed by the clutter and chaos of your everyday life? Or are you happy with a life that isn’t always content-ready? Leave a comment!

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