(no subject)
I talked to an Australian from Canberra today on the phone. After I gave him directions to my house from Durham, he said he would start "beetling on over." I've been lolling about that all day.
He was interested in buying my bike. He didn't, but he still might. He just wants more time to look around. I also put an ad up for my bed, and within minutes I had half a dozen responses. Every few minutes I get another. I was very surprised. Seems I will have no problem selling it. I can sleep on the couch, until it sells, and then the recliner, until it goes as well. Then I'll be back to where I was when I first moved to Chapel Hill, sleeping on the floor for the first six months because I was too poor to buy a bed. There's a nice symmetry to that.
All of this getting rid of stuff has really made me pay close attention to the flow of things in and out of my life. I'm trying to get rid of nearly everything I own, but at the same time I note the necessity of buying certain things I will need over the next several months. For example, I'm getting rid of a bed, but the money I get will simply be transferred into getting the kitchen clogs, knives, and clothes I'll need to have.
It's even clearer with books. I am pushing out so many of them - hundreds of them, probably thousands - but at the same time, books are still flowing into my life. Yoga books, cookbooks, novels, and the like. I've always had books coming toward me - including books I don't even buy, but just acquire by one means or another - but I've never really noticed how strong the inward flow is until I started sending them out again. I'm a bibliophilistic river finally overflowing its banks.
In general, though, I am really looking forward to disburdening myself of material possessions. They are such encumbrances. The more I try to simplify, the more I realize this. I mean, I have a whole house full of stuff. A whole house, with every thing in every room belonging to me! And a lot of it is just things that clutter up my life. Most of them are only marginally usful things, and some of them aren't useful at all. Very few of them are actual necessities - requirements for work, art, living, happiness. I am tired of having so much stuff. And I resolve in the future to be more attentive to acquiring things. No more "Yeah, I'll take that because it's kind of neat," or "You don't want this? Sure, I'll take it," or "I'll get this because it might come in handy some day." No more petty rationalizations. If the object doesn't have a clear and distinct role in my life, then I'll just let it flow around me and go on to someone else.
I'm not trying to be an ascetic. And I'm certainly not about to take on a vow of poverty. Like a friend of mine said to me, I'm a taurus and so I will always be surrounding by physical objects coming into my life. The point is simply to really value the things that I do have. Even though I'm a Taurus, the idea of ownership really stresses me out, especially when it comes to big things. Stuff you can't carry - owning property or a house? a car? No thank you. (It will be such a relief to get rid of my truck.) It's like Thoreau says in Walden, you don't own the thing so much as the thing ends up owning you. By which he means, it ends up shaping the conditions of your life and controlling the choices you are able to make for yourself. Not owning things is the actual state of freedom.
So, I am trying to think of it in terms of appreciating the usefulness of a thing, rather than in terms of owning something with an intrinsic monetary value. When I was selling my bed, for example, the number of responses to my ad made me think that I probably should have asked for more money. And maybe I could have, since the market, in retrospect, seems to allow for it. But the money is not really what I am interested in. If I had a friend who needed a bed, I would simply give him mine, for free. My main interest is not the money. The fact that I am selling it to a stranger for money is simply a convenience, a way to exchange one object I no longer need for another that I do - like I said before, the money from the bed will go straight into kitchen clogs. It's like a barter without the bartering. If I could take my bed to the cobbler and make a straight trade for it, I would.
I don't mean to put it in such stark economic terms, because my intention is to lead a more mindful life, not simply to opt out of capitalism. And I don't condemn the materialistic impulse in other people, because I know I have it in myself. But I have reached a place in my life I can really understand, in a deep and personal way, that for so many people - and for myself, for a long time - the things we buy or hold onto or attach ourselves to really get in the way of our experience of ourselves. The TV is perhaps an obvious example. Sure, I like the mindless entertainment as much as anyone, but let's face, all those hours of Montel haven't really enriched my life.
Another example: a gift from a friend, given to me many years ago. It's a box, inside a box, inside another box, with a personalized little "treasure" in the very center. It's hand-painted and pretty, and nicely made, and very thoughtful, and probably took hours to make, but what is it to me? It has sentimental value, even though the friendship blew up and no longer exists. But beyond that, it just sits there. I found it very hard to get rid of. "You feel guilty throwing it out," another friend said to me. "And maybe that's part of the intent, conscious or not, of going to such effort to make such an impractical gift: 'think of the hours I spent doing this for you.' But the real gift is the recognition of friendship, not the object itself. If you feel guilty throwing out object, that's coming from you." Maybe it's an obvious point, but she's right. My feelings about the object were getting in the way of my more general choice to simplify my life. It's like when Maude throws Harold's ring into the sea: the real gift is the relationship with the other person.
So... goodbye, bike. Goodbye, bed. Goodbye, books. Goodbye, furniture. Goodbye, stuff. I hope someone out there gets great use out of you. I've enjoyed having you in my life. But the time has come when I can see we've outgrown each other. We're both ready to move on.
He was interested in buying my bike. He didn't, but he still might. He just wants more time to look around. I also put an ad up for my bed, and within minutes I had half a dozen responses. Every few minutes I get another. I was very surprised. Seems I will have no problem selling it. I can sleep on the couch, until it sells, and then the recliner, until it goes as well. Then I'll be back to where I was when I first moved to Chapel Hill, sleeping on the floor for the first six months because I was too poor to buy a bed. There's a nice symmetry to that.
All of this getting rid of stuff has really made me pay close attention to the flow of things in and out of my life. I'm trying to get rid of nearly everything I own, but at the same time I note the necessity of buying certain things I will need over the next several months. For example, I'm getting rid of a bed, but the money I get will simply be transferred into getting the kitchen clogs, knives, and clothes I'll need to have.
It's even clearer with books. I am pushing out so many of them - hundreds of them, probably thousands - but at the same time, books are still flowing into my life. Yoga books, cookbooks, novels, and the like. I've always had books coming toward me - including books I don't even buy, but just acquire by one means or another - but I've never really noticed how strong the inward flow is until I started sending them out again. I'm a bibliophilistic river finally overflowing its banks.
In general, though, I am really looking forward to disburdening myself of material possessions. They are such encumbrances. The more I try to simplify, the more I realize this. I mean, I have a whole house full of stuff. A whole house, with every thing in every room belonging to me! And a lot of it is just things that clutter up my life. Most of them are only marginally usful things, and some of them aren't useful at all. Very few of them are actual necessities - requirements for work, art, living, happiness. I am tired of having so much stuff. And I resolve in the future to be more attentive to acquiring things. No more "Yeah, I'll take that because it's kind of neat," or "You don't want this? Sure, I'll take it," or "I'll get this because it might come in handy some day." No more petty rationalizations. If the object doesn't have a clear and distinct role in my life, then I'll just let it flow around me and go on to someone else.
I'm not trying to be an ascetic. And I'm certainly not about to take on a vow of poverty. Like a friend of mine said to me, I'm a taurus and so I will always be surrounding by physical objects coming into my life. The point is simply to really value the things that I do have. Even though I'm a Taurus, the idea of ownership really stresses me out, especially when it comes to big things. Stuff you can't carry - owning property or a house? a car? No thank you. (It will be such a relief to get rid of my truck.) It's like Thoreau says in Walden, you don't own the thing so much as the thing ends up owning you. By which he means, it ends up shaping the conditions of your life and controlling the choices you are able to make for yourself. Not owning things is the actual state of freedom.
So, I am trying to think of it in terms of appreciating the usefulness of a thing, rather than in terms of owning something with an intrinsic monetary value. When I was selling my bed, for example, the number of responses to my ad made me think that I probably should have asked for more money. And maybe I could have, since the market, in retrospect, seems to allow for it. But the money is not really what I am interested in. If I had a friend who needed a bed, I would simply give him mine, for free. My main interest is not the money. The fact that I am selling it to a stranger for money is simply a convenience, a way to exchange one object I no longer need for another that I do - like I said before, the money from the bed will go straight into kitchen clogs. It's like a barter without the bartering. If I could take my bed to the cobbler and make a straight trade for it, I would.
I don't mean to put it in such stark economic terms, because my intention is to lead a more mindful life, not simply to opt out of capitalism. And I don't condemn the materialistic impulse in other people, because I know I have it in myself. But I have reached a place in my life I can really understand, in a deep and personal way, that for so many people - and for myself, for a long time - the things we buy or hold onto or attach ourselves to really get in the way of our experience of ourselves. The TV is perhaps an obvious example. Sure, I like the mindless entertainment as much as anyone, but let's face, all those hours of Montel haven't really enriched my life.
Another example: a gift from a friend, given to me many years ago. It's a box, inside a box, inside another box, with a personalized little "treasure" in the very center. It's hand-painted and pretty, and nicely made, and very thoughtful, and probably took hours to make, but what is it to me? It has sentimental value, even though the friendship blew up and no longer exists. But beyond that, it just sits there. I found it very hard to get rid of. "You feel guilty throwing it out," another friend said to me. "And maybe that's part of the intent, conscious or not, of going to such effort to make such an impractical gift: 'think of the hours I spent doing this for you.' But the real gift is the recognition of friendship, not the object itself. If you feel guilty throwing out object, that's coming from you." Maybe it's an obvious point, but she's right. My feelings about the object were getting in the way of my more general choice to simplify my life. It's like when Maude throws Harold's ring into the sea: the real gift is the relationship with the other person.
So... goodbye, bike. Goodbye, bed. Goodbye, books. Goodbye, furniture. Goodbye, stuff. I hope someone out there gets great use out of you. I've enjoyed having you in my life. But the time has come when I can see we've outgrown each other. We're both ready to move on.