Challenge: tell me the things you are

Pick your I-cannot-live-without-objects and I will tell you who you are

I recently read an interesting article on the New York Times about an exhibition in Milan. I just want to share part of it with you and hear what you think about it.
Here it is:

When Alessandro Mendini was a student he conducted an experiment by challenging himself to live with no more than 40 objects. How did it go? He failed.
“It was impossible,” he recalled. “I’d calculated the minimum number of things I thought I needed to get by so carefully, but hadn’t realized how many pens, pencils and other drawing instruments I used in my studies.”
Despite that flop, Mr Mendini, now 79, has been obsessed by objects ever since. He has devoted much of his work, as one of Italy’s leading designers, architects, editors, critics and curators, to exploring how the things we choose to live with reflect our characters. In a dazzlingly ambitious exhibition at La Triennale Design Museum in Milan, he has assembled a collection of objects to illustrate, not his own character, but his country’s. Entitled “Quali Cose Siamo,” or “The Things We Are,” it presents Mr. Mendini’s choice of the things that make Italy, well, Italian.
(read the full article)

So, I started thinking: what would my 40 objects be?
It’s not easy! I wish I could say “a radio, a big box of chocolates, a deck of cards, a camera…” but unfortunately I think we are – or yes, I am – so linked with technology that, as many of you would know, I couldn’t stay one day without my Blackberry! (read my post I love my Blackberry)

It’s sad! It doesn’t sound “romantic” towards life at all, and I think life would deserve more from us than that. It would deserve us to be able to pay attention to small things, smile with less, and don’t miss the sense of what it’s all about.

Fine, I’m not going to make it too long, but it would be a good challenge – and lots of luck – to be able to live a week with very few object. And it’s true: the objects that every one of us would pick would represent our personality.

What would you pick?

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