where have all the buttons gone

i hate minimalism

It’s morning. I get up, wash my face, and go to the kitchen to make two cups of coffee from the coffee machine. The sun hasn’t fully risen so the kitchen is semi-dark and I’m semi-sleeping.

“Where is the ‘on’ button on this thing?!”

I squint to find it, as if I need to close my eyes even more. Found it finally. It lets out a sound that it’s on after I press it. Not a super pleasant beep to start the day.

Coffee is now done and nicely placed on the coffee table. We’re both seated on the sofa ready to watch something to start the day. I grab the remote and struggle to change the channels. I know which channel I want - it’s #362.

Unfortunately the new remotes do not have numbers on them. Just some long vertical buttons for skimming through and a big circle. What is that? So I have to press multiple buttons to choose the channel I know the number of? Every way involves scrolling or using the up-down buttons or simply SELECTING the numbers from a digital QWERTY keyboard on my screen.

It’s time to go to work. I get in the car, connect my phone and put on some music. Sun beaming down my face, wind caressing my cheek and some fun tunes to shoulder-dance to. Ahh what a time to be alive! Suddenly, a song comes on that changes my rhythm. Nooo, not now! Skip! Skip! Where is the skip button? I must avert my eyes from the road in order to change a song! I can’t touch something I cannot see!

It’s one thing to get me out of the zone, it’s another to make me accident prone.

A peacefull moment has been ripped away just because someone decided buttons are ugly and have no place in the future.

I open my Pinterest and am filled with happiness, inspiration and a new found excitement to incorporate a dose of maximalism in my home. I envy the people who know how to mix & match so many wonderful materials and colors and patterns and textures to create such positive and magical spaces. I ask myself how is one able to envision this level of grandeur and why that isn’t me?

As someone who’s worked in architecture and interior design and has been examining and even incorporating the trends for the past 6-7 years, I’ve constantly been wondering:

Where’s the pizzazz? Where’s the shimmer? Where are the curvy columns? Where are the crazy patterns? Where is the character?!

I want to know your favorite color. Is it blue? And that’s why your living room cornice is painted in that color?

I want to know your favorite material? Is it marble? And that’s why you got a green marble coffee table which shines in the morning light?

I want to know your favorite chair? Is it the Cesca chair? (Mine is!) And that’s why I want my future dining room to have six of them.

I want to know your favorite bathroom tiles? Are they red/white checkerboard? So that’s why your bathroom feels so groovy!

I definitely want to know your favorite lamp? Is it the Lulu Judarn floor lamp? Is it the Lampadaire Matsusu? Is it the Akari 24N? Or maybe the Hay Pao steel floor lamp? Either way, you’ve got extravagant taste and I’m here for it!

Design lately has been making me feel sad.

It has become so minimal, people might have to explain either what I’m looking at, or what they are actually selling.

Sleek lines, black and white colorway, a shiny surface and some matte here and there.

And don’t get me started on the children’s toys.

(It’s my Substack and I’ll rant if I want to: If you ask me I’d take baige over a rainbow color any day, but I’m not the one with underdeveloped eyes who’s going to be playing with them 24/7. Smooth surfaces are abundant in kid’s playthings as well - that’s why now there are toys created specifically for sensory development as all toys have been deprived of the same.)

I like knowing that there are bumps or unevenness to an item - the tactileness of every surface. The sterile objects that have preoccupied our households have made it bleak, drab and oh so boring.

Simplifying everything has produced supper smooth exteriors which now have one problem - not knowing if the gleaming button on the screen has been pressed. Ladies and gentlemen, the curtains please! *swoosh* Please make your acquaintance with a solution that need not even be one - sound!

One thing worse than hearing something beep is if a sound is not produced at all.

What proceeds are my hands flailing in the air and asking myself “Why does everything need to be so difficult?”.

The way technology has advanced is, in a way, kind of ironic. Everywhere I look there are thing-a-majigs with the sole purpose of making my life easier. Whether it be a coffee machine, an electric kettle, an electric cleaning brush on a cheap Chinese site (you know the one), millions of apps on my phone, a tablet, a laptop. They have created an environment where each task needs to be done in 1/3 of its original time span.

Yet, somehow I fail to succeed in doing everything, and be done with everything on time. As so many chores take less time to do, I pile myself with more and more, and cannot seem to finish at the end of the day.

That and the fact that I’m exhausted blaming myself for doing 3 things instead of 5, when I could have even done 6.

When I started this blog I blamed myself for not writing fast enough, for not churning out masterpieces in a week’s time. I actually did publish once a week, but finding interesting topics isn’t as easy. The same goes for quality writing.

So, once again, as with the chores, I stepped back and gave myself more time. At first I felt guilty, now I feel grateful because I allowed myself the normal amount of time. I’ve just not perceived it that way.

I want my newsletter to be like a button - to know that when I press it, it doesn’t beep, but evokes something.

Thank you as always for reading.

I’m gonna go and be alone with my thoughts after this. No buttons or touchscreens.

Till next time,