Saturday, February 12, 2011

Stuff

I like to think I don't have much. Truth be told I could probably have a lot less and be happier as a consequence. I have a bike I don't ride. I have miniatures I probably won't get around to painting let alone fight a table-sized battle with. I have a MacBook Pro that could probably find itself useful in the hands of someone else. I have clothes I don't wear. Shoes, I have too many shoes.

Then there's all the things that don't take up physical space. Hundreds of photographs stored in folders I could probably display, delete or drop on someone else. Thousands of words worth of text in dozens of writing projects that will probably never see the light of day. Then there's my various places on the intertoobs where I socialize, criticize and monopolize bandwidth, politics and time.

Truly, I could part with a great deal of the stuff in my life. However, there are things I could could not in good conscience unload. Keepers. I could easily boil it all down to a couple of Timbuk2 bags of miscellaneousness, a 1971 Oldsmobile, my righteous single speed bike, a couple of Macs, and my small but comprehensive library of carefully collected tomes and books. Oh, and my abandonware IBM Thinkpad.

I have some things I keep out of guilt. I spent money on those things and by golly, I'm going to sell them or find a home for them if I don't want them. The truth is that I should just cut my losses and ditch the stuff that takes up space in my physical and mental spaces. I should give the spaces that I play and rest the same consideration as the places I work.

2 comments:

  1. Amen.....life is way short...

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  2. I spent two years essentially living out of two suitcases and things were pretty peachy. Granted, my various apartments were (poorly) furnished but I ultimately owned very little. Whenever I accumulated too much, I'd send home a box of gibber. Upon returning, there was very little that I felt like keeping. It's weird how some things seem so important in the moment.

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