A cluttered table is a very unsettling sight for me. If there is something that can catapult me from a cheerful state to a gloomy one in a living room is an overburdened center table. So much so, that our living room is most-things-living-room minus the center table.
Center table Misgivings
I have observed that this table in no time becomes a haven for all sorts of things from newspapers, magazines, keys, mobile phones, tea cups (that have lost their way to the kitchen sink after their contents have been emptied) to an empty shopping bag. Often, the empty shopping is a late entrant to the scene. This bag lands on the table when one is getting ready to go grocery shopping and, the central position of the bag atop the printed material mound is an assurance that one will not forget to carry it along to the grocery store—a logic that is so liberally circulated at several households.
A Case for the Center-table-less living room:
Going without a center table has reaped me quite a few benefits. The hall looks relatively more spacious with one less piece of furniture, which also implies one less thing to clean. Things reach their assigned spots sooner than later. Equally interesting to note is the resultant reduced visual stress. The propensity to spend time plopped down on the couch with a remote in hand also greatly reduces when this most conspicuous anti-gravity-support for outstretched legs is no longer there.
I feel just like the center table, there are quite a few things in my life which I can do away with, without feeling like a troglodyte in the process. This may be a small step in minimalism, but it does make room for other useful things. Clarity on the physical plain almost invariably gets translated to better mental clarity and focus, unless of course one is Albert Einstein reincarnated. Einstein is said to have remarked, “If a cluttered desk is the sign of a cluttered mind, of what, then, is an empty desk a sign of?“Now the reason why one of the finest minds in history had such disorienting views on a clean desk policy was that there was no one to help him clean up the paper mess he created every single day of his working life, and he, owing to his busy schedule couldn’t do it himself. So the man found lasting peace and solace in the above quote.
Seriously, if it was the central table for me; it could be some other material thing for you. (Please check Tip number 2 in the video).
Ah! and for any one wondering entertaining guests in center-table-deprived- living-rooms, just usher them to the to the daddy-of-center-tables, aka the dining table for all things snacking. Works well!
VIDEO courtesy:
You Tubers: Matt and Danielle
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