Letter to Marie Kondo

Oh no, I know a dirty word
Hello, hello, hello, how low.
Smells like teen spirit. Nirvana

Dear Marie,

I am writing to thank you for your activism in the matters of tidying-up. Just like you, I, too, am a cleaner. Even though you are tidying up and I am cleaning, I feel that we have a lot in common. I am sorry if I equate cleaning to tidying up as the word "cleaning" is dirty and unnerving.
I am a cleaner at an architectural firm. Dirt in the architectural office is endless: dust, which settles on desks, computers and carpets, soiled doorknobs, footprints, toilets. There is always a pile of dishes in the kitchen sink above which there is a poster of melting ice cream pinned to the wall. A saying on that poster goes - GOOD ARCHITECTURE LEAKS. It makes me think - "Goodness...Where is the bucket?"

Designers love clarity, precision. They love aesthetics, clean work. This is all what is required of me: to be clean, precise and clear in my duties. So as I take my further interest in dirt, I know now that some like it and some don't. Or, as my coworkers would put it, it is a matter of aesthetics. This means that the same end result of cleanliness comes from two different dispositions in relation to dirt:

Cleanliness out of wanting to find dirt.
and
Cleanliness out of wanting not to find dirt.

They have one more difference to them: we want to know the first one and don't want to know the latter. The first disposition is chasing dirt for the sake of satisfaction and the second disposition is making sure it is well hidden as to avoid displeasure. Whereas some feel content at finding dirty spots, others suffer by bumping into the same sight.
According to this distinction in relation to dirt, the first mode of wanting to find more dirt results in endless perfecting and microscopic zooming in for detecting more and more dirty nooks. Needless to say that, since dirt is endless, there is always a guarantee that, if you search for it, you'll find it. It is like picking one’s nose.
On the other hand, cleaning in the mode of wanting not to find dirt or, in other words, not wanting to come across a sight of displeasure results in maintenance of cleanliness. This is a distaste for dirt, dirt is something one doesn't want to know. In this case manners guard us from seeing how another picks one’s nose.
So what is dirt? Dirt is knowledge. It is seen through cracks and duct tapes. Knowledge is mistake, knowledge is dirt. Unlike information, knowledge can't be communicated and taught. So a process of cleaning is not a simple act of elimination of dirt, because anything that needs to be eradicated or exterminated has to be rethought, since things don’t get lost or wasted without a reason. As you once mentioned that you experienced a breakthrough while organizing a bookshelf,

"I was obsessed with what I could throw away. One day, I had a kind of nervous breakdown and fainted. I was unconscious for two hours. When I came to (consciousness?), I heard a mysterious voice, like some god of tidying telling me to look at my things more closely. And I realized my mistake: I was only looking for things to throw out. What I should be doing is finding the things I want to keep. Identifying the things that make you happy: that is the work of tidying."

It is a breakthrough thought, indeed. But, as cleaners, we don't do breakthroughs as we are not champions of progressive thinking. Champions of progress, most possibly, don't concern themselves with such banal matters as cleaning as they are preoccupied with more important things. Unlike more important issues, cleaning is a matter of taking consequences and, as such, it is guaranteed to us. Maybe this is why cleaning may breed anger. I know of the term "housewife's neurosis": a condition that may affect a woman who is obliged to limit her life horizons to tidying up after others and who, as a result, may become fanatical about hygiene as a form of revenge on someone who likes and enjoys a little bit of a mess. So, if cleaning is a matter of taking consequences, when tidying after others, we are those who can decide which consequences to deal with or not.
Perhaps, to reach an understanding, we have to turn to another point of view which accepts that some of us don't want to know (dirt) and, overall, that we don't know what is important or not, good or bad. For this, Marie, you gave us a "spark joy" method of studying our personal decisions about this. As joy is something personal, everyone will experience it differently, you describe it as

“…a little thrill, as if the cells in your body are slowly rising.”

Work at an architectural office made me think of aesthetics in terms of cleaning. Today, aesthetics is about clean lines, sleek look, minimal detail and taking away everything that is considered excessive. So what if we cleaned aesthetics itself? In this case it would become aesthetics as cleaning instead of cleaning as aesthetics. An aspiration of cleaning to become aesthetical would be replaced by an aesthetic which is, in fact, nothing more than cleaning. It is not cleaning which needs to be elevated, on the contrary, it is now today's aesthetic which needs transformation. As aesthetics as cleaning becomes so low, aesthetics as we know it today would not be able to raise its objection to an aesthetics which cannot be any lower than cleaning. The question is, will this aesthetics spark joy? Isn't it what you demonstrated to us, Marie?
I would like to thank you again for dealing with matters of non-importance. Even though some would consider your actions to be a regress to woman's deference, in my eyes you are an artist, Marie. Maybe, partly, because you could not care less about this statement and about reading my letter.

Sin-celery,
Cleaner