My Body My Stuff

Sometimes I worry that discarding lots of my stuff is an exercise in self-destruction. One way of looking at it is: my real self is in my mind and body, not in the possessions I’ve collected over my lifetime. So when I reduce the volume of my junk pile, my body is not being reduced or destroyed.

The resistance I feel to letting things go is my identification with stuff as being a part of my Self. If someone treats a thing I own with disrespect, I feel as though they treated me that way! Theft used to be the worst possible crime I could imagine (short of murder). Can you imagine? Having something stolen would be like having part of you ripped away. Why is it that packrats feel their possessions are the same as their personal identity?

Is minimalism a desire to become nothing? Like a slow suicide? Perhaps, if the perceived connection between owner and owned is a real/physical one.

I seek freedom. Not just from clutter or junk so much as freedom from this strange identification with things. A breaking of the psychological bond with inanimate objects.

Libraries and Museums

There is a phrase that I repeat to myself when I am about to open a box of “memory clutter”. Stuff like photos, souvenirs, and collected things that remind me of an experience. I say, “I am not a librarian. I am not a museum curator.“

My book collection was treated like a library of valuable information that I was responsible for maintaining, so it would be available to myself, friends, and even future generations of people. Maybe I got this idea from advertisements in survivalist publications. The idea that if some large-scale disaster happens, I wouldn’t be able to find new information, so life-saving books should be collected right now and stored away so they can be brought out after the apocalypse. When I go through my books, I need to keep in mind that I should only keep the ones that I want, not the ones I have because I feel responsible for them.

Same thing with memory clutter. I should not be responsible for creating a museum of my life experiences in little mementos packed away in boxes. I probably won’t become a famous historical figure whose life needs to be examined in detail. And if I do become famous, it won’t be my job to collect artifacts and maintain a museum – it’ll be someone else’s job.

The Story of My Storage Unit

I was in a situation nine years ago where I was living in an apartment which I could not afford to pay for because I lost my job and the savings were running out.  I rented a storage unit, which was much less than apartment rent.  I had enough money left to afford it for a few months while I figured out what to do next.  I moved everything I owned into the unit except for basic stuff like clothing, toiletries, a sleeping bag, some books, etc. which I put in my car.  Then I drove to another town and starting living out of a relative’s guest room.

That was a difficult time.  I thought it would be just a few months of transition, but it eventually turned into four years of being semi-homeless.  I survived by cutting my expenses to the barest minimums, and earning money doing short-term odd jobs, working office temp jobs, selling some of my stuff, and the occasional charity gift.  I was in debt and probably suffering from severe depression.  That whole time I felt that “my life” was stashed away in that storage unit.  Since I could not afford to buy anything, I kept everything and re-used what I could.  That situation increased my packrat/hoarding behavior as a survival tactic.

During that time a good friend suddenly needed a place to store a garage full of things he was saving, such as boxes of business records, research materials, memorabilia, tools, lamps, construction materials, and I don’t know what else.  We figured that since I was paying for a space anyway, why not save money by sharing it.  I reshuffled and restacked my things, stacked his boxes nearly to the ceiling, and got it all in there.  My friend did help with the rent for a while, but that didn’t last for long.

After those four years of semi-homelessness one of my temp jobs turned into a regular job, and I have been working there for more than five years.  With a regular income from the job I was able to get out of debt, pay my own way and reimburse my hosts for their guest room.  About three years ago I had another friend who was moving out of town and had to store 20 boxes of stuff, which fit neatly on a palette.  I took that into the storage unit as well, and he also paid rent for a while but no longer does.

Most of the stuff in the storage unit doesn’t belong to me!  Yet I continue to pay the rent month after month.  Both of my friends are now living in other states and are financially unable to come here and take back their stuff.  I know now that I did not store “my life” in the unit, it was just physical stuff.  My real life is in my mind and my body.  The storage unit is a remnant of a very dark time in my life and I’ll be glad to stop renting it.

Goal For 2008

This reduction project has stalled during the end-of-year holiday season.  So much other stuff going on!  Now that it’s a new year I am thinking about how I can proceed.

There will be a new round of ebay auctions starting soon, because I still have a couple of boxes of loose items left that I’m ready to sell.  That is a minor thing though – just another step forward in a general direction.  For 2008 there should be more perspective.  A larger vision of what I am doing.

My goal for this year is to stop renting my storage unit.  It will not be easy, for reasons I’ll reveal in a later post.  I have made the same promise to myself the past two years, but this time I’m saying it “publically” on this blog, so maybe I’ll be more motivated to make it happen this time.  Much of the preliminary work has already been done.  Such as: pulling out boxes, sorting through them, selling or tossing much of the contents.  Leftover boxes are stacked up next to my bed for now, and I want to reduce them further.  There’s still lots of furniture in storage to deal with.  And a giant pile of stuff that doesn’t even belong to me.  Or does it?  How long must you store junk for someone else before it becomes your property?

I’ve been thinking about my motivations for doing this project.  They are many and deep.  The aspiration is to a monk-like existence, yet not as part of a religious group.  I think it’s called secular asceticism.  The goal being to purify the body and mind, leading to a state of inner peace and freedom.