I complain a lot about having too much stuff. And it’s a dumb thing to do in a world where 90% of people have too little. I have this ideal notion in my head that I will be happier with less. And I want to pass this on to my kids, but I feel I’m failing miserably. Dan introduced Jasper to Gameboy yesterday. Thanks! 🙂
The happiest times in my life have been those when I had less “stuff.” And discovering Thoreau has given me a historical touchstone for this perspective. But getting there’s tough. It seems I keep moving things out of my house and there’s still more and more. This eats at me because I’m conscious of just how much of my life I’m spending shuffling things around. And each thing has its own clinging or emotional hook. I still can’t throw out a tiny stained baby bib, or one page of a letter my grandmother wrote to me for a long-past birthday.
A small victory:
Yesterday I finally sorted and matched two laundry basketfuls of socks. I won’t need new ones now for years. Within 30 minutes, I recovered and reunited 40 pairs. The rest went into the garbage!!! It’s an odd thing to derive such delight from throwing out perfectly good unmatched socks. If I closed my eyes, a black one on the right and a brown one on the left would keep my feet warm just the same, I suppose.
Maybe someday this kind of indulgence will come back to frost bite me.
From Henry David Thoreau’s journal, July 11, 1852:
“What is called genius is the abundance of life or health, so that whatever addresses the senses, as the flavor of these berries, or the lowing of that cow, which sounds as if it echoed along a cool mountain-side just before night, where odiferous dews perfume the air and there is everlasting vigor, serenity, and expectation of perpetual untarnished morning,—each sight and sound and scent and flavor,—intoxicates with a healthy intoxication.”
Makes me want to go to the cabin…
