Re: The Fat Man and the Rodent

I think people should move at least every 10 years if they want to or not. When you move, you purge. Purging is a fantastic way to not only get rid of old, junky, crap, but it's also a great way to get a fresh start. Throwing out things is an amazing way of purging bad memories, and things that weigh you down. After the "cleanse" you'll find that the nagging voice in the back of your head that keeps screaming "clean me, sort me, organize me, toss me" will be silenced and you'll actually have the time to do things that you enjoy. Creative juices will start to flow, writing will commence, perhaps some tilling of soil... whatever it is that makes you who you are... you will start to become more like yourself because you will not be grounded and tied to those things.

I will admit, I am a victim of materialism. The house, the furnishings, the theatre... they all scream of materialism. But what I truly desire, is for my things to exist at a minimum. I get great pleasure in purging. Nothing is better than a large trash can and boxes marked "good will". I can toss away the regrets, give to charity the mistakes and most importantly, set on fire the old love letters stashed in shoeboxes.

And then 5, 10 years from that point, I will have accumulated an entirely different lifestyle that I will discard so I can start over again. Sometimes if a memory is especially cherished, I will keep one tiny part of it and throw away the majority. For instance, I have this rock. My mom got it from my grandmother's yard after she died. When I moved into my first house, my mom put it on top of the door in my garage and told me where she got it from. One of the last things I took when I moved to my new house was that rock. It's sitting on my windowsill in my kitchen and everytime I look at it, I think of my grandmother. I know that 50 years from now, I will have since tossed my grandmother's dishes and other items... but I will always have that rock.

So by the time I die, I will have purged my life and started anew about 10 -20 times. But I know that in the end, even if I just have a shoebox with a rock and a feather and a rose petal in it, that those will be my most cherished possessions and they will have defined who I am. I will give that box to my children or grandchildren and tell them that if they want to know how to find happiness, all they have to do is look in that box.

It's not the things that matter, its the few small symbols we glean from life that remind us of who we really are and how we got there.