Who hasn’t done that?
I’ve never been much of a “thing” person, I don’t collect anything, anymore. I don’t even collect my own trophies (I left them all behind). There were moments of slight anxiety when letting go of the last book in my private library. Thoughts such as “… but I don’t remember anything about Aristotle’s ‘Rhetoric’… I can’t solve any of these equations!… I don’t remember anything about heterocyclic chemistry!!…” were not pleasant. It was not obvious at first that no matter what I didn’t retain, keeping the books wasn’t going to make any difference. Then a peaceful feeling of surrender took place: I have become acquainted with a minuscule part of Humanity’s intellectual production. It didn’t make any sense to hold on to books I had already read or consulted if the immense majority of that production was still unread, especially considering I probably already lived around 70% of my life. I let go of everything.
I had only one collection and it was stolen in recent times. I collected powerlifting gear. I don’t anymore.
If I already had some type of order and cleanliness obsession, both became significantly more intense this past year. With them, minimalism.
“Let’s keep some needs – I may find something to satisfy them, some time” substituted the universal hoarding motto. I only have spare items for what is a safety issue to have them. For any item that comes into my wardrobe, one or more need to go. Two cups. Four glasses.
Simple shit.
Not owning things, not having pets and having multiple backup copies of all my documents, in different official translation versions, not making chronic use of much medication constitute my freedom. Nothing holds me. I embraced my rootlessness.
Maybe for this reason hoarding and addiction scare the hell out of me. I’m concerned: I’m not sure I can handle addiction in my work. I surely can’t handle hoarders: I’m not up to it, not qualified, not equipped. I feel they want to swallow everything around them, including me, so I stay away.
Addicts… I don’t know. We’ll see. I feel I have something to offer them but only experience will tell if I can. Soon I will know.
