日本收纳女王的整理经 整洁改变人生(上)

Joy points upward, according to Marie Kondo, whose name is now a verb and whose nickname is being trademarked and whose life has become a philosophy. In April at the Japan Society in New York, she mounted a stage in an ivory dress and silver heels, made namaste hands at the audience and took her place beneath the display of a PowerPoint presentation. Now that she has sold nearly 6 million copies of “The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up” and has been on The New York Times best-seller list for 86 weeks and counting, she was taking the next logical step: a formal training program for her KonMari method, certifying her acolytes to bring the joy and weightlessness and upward-pointing trajectory of a clutter-free life to others. The humble hashtag that attended this event was #organizetheworld.

据近藤麻理惠(Marie Kondo)讲，愉悦是向上的力量。她的名字现在成了一个动词，她的昵称正被注册成商标，她的生活方式变成了一种哲学。今年4月，在纽约的日本协会(Japan Society)，她穿着象牙白的裙子，脚着银色高跟鞋，走上舞台，向观众做合十礼，在PPT展示屏幕下站好。她已经卖出近600万册《怦然心动的人生整理魔法》(The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up)，此书跻身《纽约时报》畅销书排行榜长达86周且仍然在榜，因此她开始迈出符合逻辑的下一步：为她的近藤麻里惠法(KonMari)提供正式的培训项目，确保她的追随者将整洁生活的快乐、飘逸和向上的人生轨迹带给其他人。伴随这一活动出现的低调的话题标签是#让世界变得有条理#(#organizetheworld)。

Upon entering the Japan Society, the 93 Konverts in attendance (and me) were given lanyards that contained our information: our names, where we live and an option of either the proud “Tidying Completed!” or the shameful “Tidying Not Yet Completed!” In order to be considered tidy, you must have completed the method outlined in Kondo’s book. It includes something called a “once-in-a-lifetime tidying marathon,” which means piling five categories of material possessions — clothing, books, papers, miscellaneous items and sentimental items, including photos, in that order — one at a time, surveying how much of each you have, seeing that it’s way too much and then holding each item to see if it sparks joy in your body. The ones that spark joy get to stay. The ones that don’t get a heartfelt and generous goodbye, via actual verbal communication, and are then sent on their way to their next life. This is the crux of the KonMari — that soon-to-be-trademarked nickname — and it is detailed in “The Life-Changing Magic” and her more recent book, “Spark Joy.” She is often mistaken for someone who thinks you shouldn’t own anything, but that’s wrong. Rather, she thinks you can own as much or as little as you like, as long as every possession brings you true joy.

走进日本协会，前来参加活动的93名“近藤皈依者”(Konvert)以及我，收到了包含我们信息的吊牌：名字、居住地，还有两个选择项，要么是令人自豪的“整洁达成！”，要么是丢脸的“整洁未达成！”。要被看作整洁的人，你必须已经完成了近藤麻里惠书中列出的方法。其中包括一种被称为“一生一次的马拉松大扫除”的行动，指的是堆放五类有形所有物——衣服、书籍、纸张、杂物和诸如照片等敏感物品——一次整理一类，查看你有多少那类东西，发现数量过多，然后拿起每样东西，看它是否能激起你内心的愉悦。那些能让你怦然心动的东西可以留下来，其他的就通过实打实的口头交流，诚挚大方地与之告别，把它们送上去往来生的路。这就是KonMari法——马上将被注册成商标的昵称——的关键所在，在《怦然心动的人生整理魔法》和她更新的著作《怦然心动》(Spark Joy)中得到了详细的描绘。她经常被错误地看作是那种认为你不该保留任何东西的人，但这是一种误解。相反，她认为你可以依自己意愿，尽量多地留，或尽量少地留，只要每一样都能给你带来真正的愉悦。

Her book was published in the United States in 2014, quietly and to zero fanfare and acclaim. Kondo’s inability to speak English made promotional radio and talk-show appearances hard sells. But one day, a New York Times Home section reporter happened upon the book and wrote an article discussing her own attempt at KonMari-ing her closets; the book caught fire.

她的著作于2014年在美国出版，悄无声息，没有受到大肆宣传和赞扬。近藤不会说英语，因此她参加电台节目和脱口秀做宣传的效果也差强人意。但是有一天，《纽约时报》家居版的一名记者偶然看到这本书，写了一篇文章，讲述她自己采用KonMari法试着整理衣橱的过程；然后这本书就火起来了。

People in America had an unnaturally strong reaction to the arrival of this woman and her promises of life-changing magic. There were people who had been doing home organizing for years by then, and they sniffed at her severe methods. But then there were the women who knew that Kondo was speaking directly to them. They called themselves Konverts, and they say their lives have truly changed as a result of using her decluttering methods: They could see their way out of the stuff by aiming upward.

对于这名女士的到来和她许诺的可以改变人生的魔法，美国人一反常态地予以了强烈回应。当时已经有人做家居整理许多年，对她严苛的方法嗤之以鼻。但接着就出现了一批女性，知道近藤的方法对她们很有用。她们自称为Konvert，宣称在使用近藤的清理方法之后，她们的生活发生了真正的改变：通过将目标调高，她们看到了一条出路。

During her Japan Society lecture, Marie demonstrated how the body feels when it finds tidying joy. Her right arm pointed upward, her left leg bent in a display of glee or flying or something aerial and upright, her body arranged I’m-a-little-teacup-style, and a tiny hand gesture accompanied by a noise that sounded like “kyong.” Joy isn’t just happy; joy is efficient and adorable. A lack of joy, on the other hand, she represented with a different pose, planting both feet and slumping her frame downward with a sudden visible depletion of energy. When Kondo enacted the lack of joy, she appeared grayer and instantly older. There isn’t a specific enough name for the absence of joy; it is every emotion that isn’t pure happiness, and maybe it doesn’t deserve a name, so quickly must it be expunged from your life. It does, however, have a sound effect: “zmmp.”

在日本协会做演讲期间，近藤麻理惠演示了当感受到整洁的愉悦时，身体会有怎样的反应。她的右臂向上抬起，左腿弯曲，作欢欣状、飞行状或架空垂直状，她做出“我是一个小茶杯”式的姿势，还有细微的小手势，同时鼻子发出类似“kyong”的声音。愉悦不只是快乐；它也意味着高效和讨人喜欢。另一方面，缺乏愉悦感时，她会做出不同的姿势，双腿站立，身躯猛然跌落，可以看出浑身没了力气。在近藤展示缺乏愉悦感的状态时，她看起来没精打采，突然老了一些。没有一个明确的词可以概括愉悦的缺乏；它是纯粹的喜悦之外的所有情绪，或许也不值得为它命名，因为这是必须被马上从你的生活里去除的东西。不过，它的确有一个声效：zmmp。

Joy is the only goal, Kondo said, and the room nodded, yes, yes, in emphatic agreement, heads bobbing and mouths agape in wonder that something so simple needed to be taught to them. “My dream is to organize the world,” Kondo said as she wrapped up her talk. The crowd cheered, and Kondo raised her arms into the air like Rocky.

近藤表示，愉悦是唯一的目标，台下的观众连连点头称是，态度明确而一致。她们一边点头，一边张着嘴，惊讶于这么简单的道理自己原来竟不知道。“我的梦想是让世界变得有条理，”近藤在演讲结束时说。台下欢呼声响起，近藤像拳击手洛奇一样举起双臂。

SHE DID NOT set out to become a superpower in the already booming world of professional organization. It just sort of happened to her, a natural outgrowth of a lifelong obsession with carefully curating her belongings. When she was a little girl, she read all of her mother’s homemaking magazines, and as early as elementary school began researching various tidying methods, so disquieted was her brain by her family’s possessions.

她并非一开始就打定主意要成为蒸蒸日上的职业整理界的超级力量。这有点像是自然发生的，是从小就有的对整理自己所有物的迷恋带来的水到渠成。当还是小女孩时，她就阅读了母亲所有的家居杂志，早在上小学期间，她就开始研究各种各样的整理方法，为家里的东西劳神、烦恼。

When she was 19, her friends began offering her money for her tidying services. At the time, she was enrolled at Tokyo Woman’s Christian University, studying sociology, with a concentration on gender. She happened upon a book called “Women With Attention Deficit Disorder,” by Siri Solden, and in it there was a discussion over women who are too distracted to clean their homes. Kondo was disturbed that there was little consideration that a man might pick up the slack in this regard, that a woman with ADD was somehow broken because she couldn’t tidy. But, she conceded, buried in this outrageous notion was a core truth: that women have a closer connection to their surroundings than men do. She realized that the work she was doing as a tidying consultant was far more psychological than practical. Tidying wasn’t just a function of your physical space; it was a function of your soul. After college she found work at a staffing agency but continued to take tidying jobs in the early mornings and late evenings, initially charging $100 per five-hour block. Eventually she quit her job, and soon the wait list for her services reached six months.

到19岁的时候，她的朋友开始给她钱让她帮忙整理屋子。当时，她正在东京女子大学(Tokyo Woman’s Christian University)就读，研习社会学，专注于性别研究。她偶然看到了由西里·索尔登(Siri Solden)撰写的《有注意力缺陷多动障碍的女性》(Women With Attention Deficit Disorder)。书中谈到有些女性注意力太过分散，无法收拾屋子。几乎没人考虑过，在这种情况下，男人应该接过这项任务，也没人想过从某种程度上讲，患有注意力缺陷多动障碍的女人是有缺失的，无法做整理工作，近藤为此感到不安。不过，她也承认，这种可耻的观念深处存在一个核心的事实：与男性相比，女性与周围的环境有更密切的联系。她意识到，自己在做的整理顾问的工作其实远远更偏向于心理层面，而非实践。整理不只是你的物理空间在起作用；也是你灵魂的一个功能。大学毕业后，她在一家人力中介公司找到了工作，但继续在清早和晚间兼职做收拾房间的工作。她一开始的收费标准是5小时100美元。最终她辞掉了正职，很快她的服务已经预约到了六个月以后。

When she enters a new home, Kondo says, she sits down in the middle of the floor to greet the space. She says that to fold a shirt the way everyone folds a shirt (a floppy rectangle) instead of the way she thinks you should (a tight mass of dignified envelope-shaped fabric so tensile that it could stand upright) is to deprive that shirt of the dignity it requires to continue its work, i.e. hanging off your shoulders until bedtime. She would like your socks to rest. She would like your coins to be treated with respect. She thinks your tights are choking when you tie them off in the middle. She would like you to thank your clothes for how hard they work and ensure that they get adequate relaxation between wearings. Before you throw them out, she wants you to thank them for their service. She wants you to override the instinct to keep a certain thing because a shopping-network show or a home-design magazine or a Pinterest page said it would brighten up your room or make your life better. She wants you to possess your possessions on your own terms, not theirs.

近藤表示，当她走进一个新家时，她会坐在地板中央向这个空间打招呼。她说，像所有其他人那样叠衬衫（叠成松弛的长方形），而非以她认为应该的那样（叠成紧凑庄重的信封状，乃至可以立起来），是剥夺了这件衬衫继续工作——比如穿在你的肩上，直到你上床睡觉——所需的尊严。她想让你的袜子得到休息，希望你的硬币得到尊重。她认为，如果把紧身裤在中间打个结，它会窒息。她希望你能感谢自己的衣物那么努力地工作，确保它们在下一次使用之前得到充分的放松。在你扔掉它们之前，她希望你能对它们提供的服务表示感谢。她希望你不要因为一个购物频道的节目、一本家居设计杂志或一个Pinterest网页说某样东西可以点亮你的房间，或让你的生活变得更好，就买回来，而是要战胜这种本能。她希望你依自己的判断决定你拥有什么，而不是别人的。

She is tiny — just 4-foot-8. When I interviewed her, not only did her feet not touch the ground when we were sitting, but her knees didn’t even bend over the side of the couch. When she speaks, she remains pleasant-faced and smiling. The only visible possessions in her hotel room for a two-week trip from Tokyo were her husband’s laptop and a small silver suitcase the size of a typical man’s briefcase.

近藤身材娇小——只有1.43米。当她坐着接受我的采访时，不仅脚没有着地，连膝盖都没有弯到沙发另一面。说话的时候，她一直保持和悦的表情，一直在微笑。这次从东京过来，她计划待两周时间，而在她的酒店房间所能看到的唯一的私人物品是她丈夫的手提电脑和一个典型男士公文包大小的银色手提箱。

Her success has taken her by surprise. She never thought someone could become so famous for tidying that it would be hard to walk down the street in Tokyo. “I feel I am busy all the time and I work all the time,” she said, and she did not seem so happy about this, though her faint smile never wavered.

获得这样的成功，也出乎她本人的意料。她从来没想过有人会因为擅长收纳整理而变得这么出名，会因此难以在东京街头走动。“我感觉自己一直很忙，无时无刻不在工作，”近藤说。她似乎为此不太开心，但她的脸上一直泛着微微的笑意。