.
My recent Facebook status messages read “Decluttering: How removing refuse and reducing rubbish feels so GOOD” and “Continues reducing and removing. Decluttering on Facebook is nasty but soul-rewarding work.”
Which is basically all about my removing folks I hardly chat/connect with from my Facebook Friends list. It’s odd, these social networking sites — they make it so easy (with one click, Add Friend) to up the volume but not the intimacy, not necessarily. I read somewhere that your close circle of friends and family would only number about 150 people. It’s one thing to know a whole lot of people — I think most of us know thousands — it’s quite another to have time and true emotion spent on connecting with them.
But people aren’t crap. What I meant by the tagline above is simply removing the time and effort spent on the inanities of folks we hardly know and refocusing it on the ones we do love and wish we knew better.
Connect. With the ones who matter.
.
Words & design by Kenny Mah. Photograph by mn-que.
I’m still your friend in FB right, RIGHT? Hehe
@Leen: Yes, you are, Leen. We just rocked out to Sweet Child O’ Mine semalam kat karaoke lah…
*sighs*
I am so gonna get it for this post, aren’t I? Oh well…
Facebook checked. Twitter checked. MSN checked. Phew, lucky me I’m still on Kenny’s contact list. muahahahhaha
@ladyironchef: Aiyo, as if I’d ever delete you from my life, bro.
*expects more sarkiness to follow from others*
SEIRI.
SEITON.
SEISO.
SEIKETSU.
SHITSUKE.
Looks like you’re applying the 5S in your life.
For those who don’t know what those japanese words mean — chk out this link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5S_(methodology)
Have a great week, Kenny,
Are we friends on FB?
Haha — *reading all comments above * so your latest de-cluttering exercise is worrying some of your fans yea? ;p
But i agree…only those close and those worth knowing better. ;p
Myself moving to a new plc this w-end. U wont believe how much junk i unloaded into the rubbish bin!
For those still shiny and use-able, the Charity bins outside my apartment bulged with them.
But at least i knw they will be useful to others now.
Ahh..cant wait to de-clutter more!
*rolling up sleeves and rearing to get at ‘em junks!*
haha looks like i got to check my fb too =)
phew, thank goodness i’ve never added u on fb. i’d get deleted for sure!
i do understand the desire to declutter, though personally, i wouldn’t remove anyone, mainly cos u never know whether u might someday need/want to get in touch with them, even if it seems unlikely for now…
Yeah, it’s kinda scary sometimes. When the shoutouts can be seen by so many people, some who may not even know me, and worse, still, colleagues/bosses in the office!
Oh amen amen, I echo the need for decluttering, be it Facebook or the former drug-lab that used to be my room, with all the white powder from those sawn CDs.
Sometimes though, I wonder how much invisible decluttering is left crying out to be done, no matter if it’s social networks, or the trappings of a physical place — attachments that should be broken, memories that should be left behind, the unspoken weight of all those words that should have been said and weren’t, or those that shouldn’t have been, and were. Expectations that need rethinking, regrets broken into shades of grey spread out over weeks and months and years.
Time to declutter again, m’dear. You’re so very right. Connect with those who matter; the very fine thread of life and connection could break any time.
Well, yeah, whenever I feel my list growing … without reason, I do a spring cleaning every quarter … and I’m left with a list of people whom I keep in touch with regularly and / or whom are family and give me a feeling of warm, loving cosiness … kinda like a warm blanket to snuggle into on a cold, blustering winter night.
*sigh*
I’m getting a little Christmassy
haha … 
Have a good one.
Cheers,
Ken.
Yeah! Kenny still friend me
i wonder if your desktop on your PC or Mac is cluttered. hehe…
mine is!
magic mop doesn’t work coz i got the invincible cloak.
inconceivable, that your desktop can be so clean!
Call it Defragmenting then
Or Disk Cleanup.
So what have you done for Christmas?
Yeah, it’s that time of the year again to reflect again on the folks who matter — decluttering is personally quite an arduous task for me. Very frequently, I hit the difficult questions not long after I start my Delete spree… is this person worth keeping? If not now, what about the potential of he/she becoming more significant down the road? I just give up and try drown out all the noise on those daft feeds!
That is a ground shattering subject which is as complicated as in any human relationship. We have friends who claim to need only 20 in a lifetime as being optimum sufficient while others say , why , isn’t my family of 4 enough already…while the love forlonged lost gal will say I just need you , only.
Yeah even we heard Jesus Christ almost gave up
lol im sorry but your last line sounds perfect for a telco ad! tee hee.…
UH OH.… you deleted me from FB! No kidding!!! After reading this post and all the comments, I directly checked it out and can’t find you anymore on my FB!!! *sobs*
Oh well, it’s Ok… no worries…
was i ‘decluttered’? i hope not
Hey Kenny.…. This is an good post… this is what i am trying to do in all aspects of my life , and trying to see who my true friends are.…
De-clutterring is a daunting task , but the results are cool…
thanks for this reminder… and looking forward to see more of your posts.… hope u r all well
@Vimesh: Here’s to your success in de-cluttering your life too, bro! And hopefully another post this week, if my workload eases up, that is.
My school friends couple of them… added me as a friend in FB.… its 15 years since mu 10th grade and after one of my close friend of school added me .. they saw the mutual friends list and added me
I accepted request of one guy.. but i am too soft hearted but them i thought i ought to be a mean fat girl in my heart and ignore them… still wondering what to do.…
Or may be i should be mean !!
@vimesh: Me, I dunno about you, but I’m still deleting!
I have been trying to find the delete-friend button at facebook, where is it eh? HAHA
1. If you are at your friend’s profile page, scroll down to the bottom of the left-side bar. There is a “Remove from Friends” link above the Share tab.
2. If you click on the Friends tab at the top menu bar, it’ll bring you to a list of friends with a cross next to eact name (right-most). Click that to delete.
I’m sure there are other ways to delete friends too, but this is how I do it… Hope that helps.
*now runs and checks if he’s still ladyironchef’s friend pulak*
Yes lah. I even know your family name, dear…
Thanks for sharing this, Jemima. I tak pernah dengar 5S, believe it or not. I guess I’m busy Seisō-ing now…
Fans? Mana ade? Anyway I’m mostly deleting old schoolmates and business contacts whom I really never speak to on FB anyway. They’re good people but in the world of FB, adds up to clutter. No hard feelings.
It’s like, do you wanna spend an evening with your partner/spouse or a whole room full of your people you met once before?
P.S. Yay for your move to a new place and recycling your unwanted stuff. One woman’s junk is another man’s treasure and all that…
Not you too, bro!
*sure kena bang teruk hari ni*
Haha, if I did, I’d prolly just pick up this device called The Telephone and I dunno, call them?
*okay, my turn for joyous sarkiness. ’tis the season!*
Haha, that’s actually a good point: Should colleagues and formal biz/work contacts be the next to go?
I blinked once, hard, when I saw the phrase ‘white powder’, and then I saw the bit about sawn CDs. Sighed with relief, and then blinked again. Sawn CDs??
Hehe.
The masses need to know of your gorgeous designs and craftswork, dear.
(And you’ve given me food for thought yet again, about broken strands of regret falling through the years, weaving into nets to trap us and also into blankets to keep us warm. Sometimes misery can be comforting.)
That’s kinda my plan for the end of the year, if not necessarily by Xmas — to re-connect with those folks in a more meaningful manner, even friends I see every week but may not spend enough time with.
Friends can be like that warm, snuggly blanket, yeah?
Top of the season to you too, mate!
Sawn CDs! What I made the Birdbirdbird necklace out of, and since I’ve got nowhere else in the place to do any sawing, it has to be in my room. I’ve even gotten some sheet acrylic, but I need a face mask so it doesn’t prove hazardous to my lungs. (Although sawing CDs, while recyclingly correct, seems to be hazardous to MY health
)
Nets and blankets — both fabrics, but one leaves holes for the chill wind to wreak havoc, the other comforts. You’re right of course. I wonder though whether the net is comforting as a blanket only because we’re too cold already to notice, and some warmth, however minute, gives us a spark of hope.
…ok, I am –still– on the verges of sleep. Going to rest, as my entire internal system went upside down earlier and is still pending rescusitation!
It’s all boils down to size of them holes, right?
Okies, a properer reply this time — blame it on my amok-ing brains today, they don’t so much splatter as sprint around in a spirited soul-sucking spree…
Get some rest, dear. Say hi to Mr. Sandman to me.
Yeah, this time of the year usually makes me all gushy and gooey inside (o.O), and I’m SURE you get what I actually mean
… and I usually write L-O-N-G letters to my family members and put it in their Christmas cards …
I’m so excited about Christmas, my fave time of year. Next week it’s shopping for gifts and my new tree for my new home. Ahhh .… retail therapy.
Congrats on the new home! Retail therapy? I am totally envious… the sorry state of my bank account forbids me from going anywhere near Emporio Armani or Hugo Boss (*weeps, weeps*).
And them L-O-N-G letters? I’m sure your family enjoys every single word. I know I would.
Don’t worry about soul-sucking! It’s them tentacles of Cthulhu, I tell ya…
Yes. It boils down to the size of the holes (and, really, given enough time and usage, even a blanket can become a net as the fabric wears away).
I will indeed say hi to Mr. Sandman for you. That is, if I can untangle the horse’s tail from my hair first.
*rolls eyes*
The only icon on my desktop? The recycle bin. And it matches the wallpaper.
Yeah, Cthulhu! I love H. P. Lovecraft, even if I have only really read just one story of his. (Try and guess which one.)
And I shudder to even ask why the horse’s tail is tangled up in your hair. (Or, for that matter, where the horse came from.)
oh man, you are neat!
inconceivable! LOL…
Whaddyamean ‘inconceivable’???
*runs and chases after keropokman with a magic mop*
Bah, humbug! I’ll get ya yet!
Hehehe. There’s a handful of Cthulhu ones, but I’d suspect The Call of Cthulhu, since it’s a) a short story and b) the easiest for accessibility for now?
As for the horse — y’know, typical foot in mouth and horse’s arse when saying the wrong thing…y’know.
Good call, but it’s actually… ‘The Outsider’, which was even creepier cos I read it with Sufjan Stevens’s Seer’s Tower as background music..
And I’m not gonna comment about the foot in the horse’s arse…
Ooh, been ages since I did a defrag. Maybe this is the modern, Internet/social-networking version of it?
Hahaha… I guess we keep all of them somehow in our circle of acquaintances. Don’t get me wrong, guys — this isn’t about “deleting” those people from our lives per say but more like what you said… drowning out the needless noise…
And focus on the calm of someone who means more…
Only 20? I can barely manage dwindling it down to 150!
Well, I totally copyright it first! LOL
LOL. I deleted you by mistake cos your real-world name isn’t “Selba” and I was wondering who that person was… Re-added you and now we’ve got three ways of communicating:
1. Our blogs
2. Facebook
3. Emails (by which we resolved this identity issue only moments earlier)
Sometimes I feel like kicking myself in the back-bazoo then realise I’m not that flexible.
Hehehe.… no worries, people do make mistake. I should sounding more on FB last time so you know who I am
Haha, what’s really cool is that we’re communicating via all three media right now in real time! Ah the wonders of technology!
Mr. Popular! =)
Try Mr. Unpopular as my friends disown me!
No way! Definitely not! You’re on my friends list for good.