Everyday Musings > The Essential Life

Essential home by Judith Wilson and Jan Baldwin is a home decor book that concentrates on the essentials of a home. Judith and Jan talk of building a foundation with good linen, truly comfortable cushions, rugs that feel great to touch, few pieces of classic furniture, well made glassware and cutlery. It could then be dressed up or down after the basics are in place. ‘Easy Living’ by Terrance Conran talks of similar things; of the element of quality in a home that makes it easy to live in. Of being aware of fabrics, textures, even button fastenings, all of which can affect the sense of real comfort.

The home that my parents grew up in had furniture made of solid teak that’s in the family even today. The utensils were iron, wood, brass; always polished and clean. The thin absorbing cotton towels were just right for the Kerala weather. The flooring was red oxide and kept the home cool. There was an invisible aura of quality, of solidity, of being true.

The homes a lot of us live in today aren’t built or decorated based on those principles. The stores we buy from showcase ply polished to imitate mahogany or teak, Oriental rugs in cheap synthetic with chemical dyes that are not ideal to live with. The towels are velvet finished terry that absorb little water and fade and turn limp in five washes. There was a generation that could tell real lace from machine made, good cotton from bad, preferred silk to synthetic, and it wasn’t royalty. It was everyday people, in everyday lives, buying everyday things, in local markets; quality of the kind that we today consider luxury.

What changed? We are definitely more brand conscious, but are we as quality conscious? If we looked around our homes and kept aside everything that was not true quality, how much would we be left with? How much of what we bring into our lives and interact with on a daily basis are really aware of?

What Essential Home got me thinking about was not just about the home, but about us. What goes into making the Essential Human Being? The Essential Mind. The Essential Body. What do we feed ourselves with? What do we fill in our minds? What is the quality of our life? Our thoughts? Our conversations? And how aware are we of our lives?

The Essentials of life are about having real wealth – good health, clean comfortable home, fresh food, good conversations, a clear sharp mind. A surge of quality in our choices, our acts, places us in a higher plane of life. The people who are stalwarts are examples of that. Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Nelson Mandela, Schumacher. Before after shows, the ones that work, like Mary, Queen of Shops, are based on that too. They raise the plane that we live on. And life is all about finding the higher plane - of thought, of being, of life.

Quality in life, of life, is the same as breathing. It isn’t a luxury, but an absolute essential.