You Must Start Your Swedish Death Cleansing
Exciting news: new organizational instructions have appeared in the city. Watch out, Marie Kondo, and make way for The Swedish Art of Cleansing Death: How to Free Yourself and Your Family from the Mess . The author, Margareta Magnusson, who is “somewhere between 80 and 100,” began the process of cleaning her house and organizing things for her heirs, and found it so rewarding that she wrote a book about it.
Questions: 1) What is the cleansing of death 2) How is it different from Marie Kondo 3) Why is it not just called “cleaning the house and organizing affairs for the heirs”?
Answers: 1) According to Whimn , this is a process (which ideally starts at age 50) of slowly giving away foreign property; 2) it is Decluttering, but with additional advice on how to deal with the practical issues of death; and 3) this is not a very good book title.
This sparked an interesting discussion about Metafilter because anyone who is getting old or has aging parents has a dog in this fight. There are tales of unbalanced grandparents who left organized financial records and a minimum of things, and tales of despair as they cleaned up collectors’ houses full of trash. Some people think, as Alan Alda supposedly joked, that it is okay to leave unedited material in the house (what do we care? We’re dead), while others think that simplifying the process is both responsibility and kindness. as you can for your loved ones after you leave.
I am a supporter of innovators, but with some reservations. Firstly, none of us know when we’re going to leave, and if I were to close tomorrow, I would definitely leave behind a closet full of second-hand clothes, a lot of CDs that I still have n’t inserted into my computer. and a lot of random handwritten notes that say something like “buy TP, maybe write a story about French parents?” the password to the bank account is BANKTIME “. My will … somewhere. (Probably labeled “dead.”) Dying is not the same as taking a trip out the door — we all leave behind some unfinished business and a half-eaten box of yogurt in the fridge. And, secondly, we all have attachment to things that do not make sense to other people, so it is difficult to entice anyone – else to get rid of the mess, when you do not fully understand how safe and comfortable they feel on the shelf with statues Hummel. Therefore, we must all act with caution to help our loved ones cleanse themselves.
The good thing about Magnusson’s instructions is that her book is also about taking responsibility for your life while you live: “It’s about a permanent form of organization that makes your daily life smoother.” She also offers help on how to start this conversation with aging parents who may not want to talk about what they are going to leave behind. Is it painful? Does not look like it. It’s more like a peaceful, orderly way to get your affairs settled so that you don’t leave the big Swedish death mess for other people to clean up.