Finding Zen among the Japanese clutter


A page from the book Tokyo Style by Kyoichi Tsuzuki, showing an apartment full of clutter.

Matt Alt, author of Pure Invention: How Japan Made the Modern World, expounds on our relationship with material things and why we look to Japan for ideas to simplify our homes.

However, if minimalism and decluttering is a losing battle, we might as well embrace the joys of the glorious mess.

If clutter is such an important part of everyday life here, why is it so often overlooked? The story of the world’s fascination with Japanese stuff is in many ways not about Japan at all. It is the story of our own changing desires, our social anxieties, our urges to consume and accumulate, and our realisation that possessing more things doesn’t necessarily translate into more happiness. In Japan, we believe we have found solutions to our problems.