STUFF!!!

How did I get so much stuff?

Mainly, papers... ugh. Someday, they will find me, buried under a fallen pile of "important" papers that I wasn't sure where to file. So sad - suffocation by paperwork. I HATE paperwork. Hate it. We've tried to get everything online - e-bills, e-newsletters, e-magazines - yet we still get too much paper mail. We've opted out of mailing lists and catalogs over and over, and yet they keep finding us!

Is the "Closet Maximizer" the answer?

Once, on Riders Radio Theatre, I heard a great fake commercial about the "Closet Maximizer" and the idea has stuck with me for years... a simple device, really - a large carboard box, lighter fluid, and a box of matches. "Not Recommended for Indoor Use"!

Well, lacking the backyard bonfire to try the Closet Maximizer, we are maxing out our apartment's recycling bins! I had 3 boxes full of files from AEOE, my organization where I've been newsletter editor, webmaster, and president, among other things... I had meeting minutes, old newsletters, and all kinds of stuff that is going straight into the recycling bin - I have pretty much all of it online now! So much information - conference workshop presenter contacts from 7 years ago, ideas for keynote speakers, workshops, etc. Now that there's Google, who needs files?

Information ages and ages...

I have these crates (yes, milk crates) of files I've carried with me for years - lesson plans from my student teaching days, notes and papers from trainings I attended as a US Forest Service Botanist, such as how to recognize ozone injury damage to pines, writing NEPA documents, habitat maps - how many trees were cut down so that they could give all their employees all that information? Tossing it forces me to admit I will either never be a Forest Service Botanist again, or if I am, all that information will be outdated anyway. At least I know that I left accessible information behind in those past positions. I hate it when someone leaves and takes all their knowledge with them. I've tried to avoid that, so I can recycle all that useful (or once useful) information guilt-free.

The boxes of files I have not yet been able to let go are my Park Service files. - at least one file box which represents hours and hours of research for all of my programs. I ~would~ like to be a Park Ranger again. I loved giving campfire talks, and most especially leading the 7-day High Sierra Camp Loop Trips in Yosemite. That is the best job I've ever had the honor of doing. So those files get stored.

Thank goodness for Freecycle and Craigslist!

I've been putting together collections of items to give away on Freecycle and Craigslist, things thrift stores would not want, but with the wider audience of the web, someone will not only want, but come to my door to pick it up! A box of old postcards and notecards, for example, and collections of phone cords, old tech books, out of date software, even pencils. No need to toss anything, practically!

I've also been selling items on Craigslist - household items we don't really want to pay to store for the next year, like our couch, coffee table, 36" TV, among other things. Found a college student with a new apartment that wants lots of it - cool way to help someone get set up and get rid of excess stuff, and make a little cash and save some money on storage and moving all at the same time!

The battle continues...
So I continue to get off mailing lists, with the help of groups like the Center for a New American Dream which has Junk Mail "Get off the Lists" resources, and by calling individual catalog companies to opt out, and by looking for opt out options (say that five times fast) on every form I fill out, every online purchase I make... it's a cause that requires constant vigilance! Freedom from junk mail!

The hardest battle, though, is the battle with myself. I am a packrat. I am a procrastinator. I dislike waste and if something is still "good" or could be used by someone, somewhere, I can't toss it. This is a good quality that comes from good values, but the effect, combined with procrastination, particularly, is not good!

Lessons: Don't let it into your life unless you love it or need it (preferably both); Don't keep it in your life unless you need it or love it; Take care of it right away if you neither need nor love it!

These are seemingly simple lessons, yet SO difficult in reality to stick with. Hmmm, ~maybe~ we could use that... someday... somewhere... Sigh. My parents survived the great depression and their garage was a monument to not wasting anything. My dad was a dumpster diver - he'd go for walks and bring back "this perfectly good doohickey" the neighbors were throwing away! Our garage was full of them. Whenever anyone needed anything or something needed repair, he had something in his garage for the job. So perhaps some of it is in my genes, and in my upbringing. Nature and Nurture are both working against me. But I am agonizing over getting rid of SO much history that I've dragged with me for the past 15 years at least, that I am hopeful I will not let it build up to that extreme again. Hope springs eternal!

Too much stuff is a symptom of the modern condition - we are victims of comfort, as Keb Mo said, and in our greed, we hang onto belongings we no longer need - the whole storage industry is a racket! If I don't need it or can't fit or use it in my house, I don't need it, period! Stuff should get recirculated back into the system, back into society, to be used and enjoyed by someone else, if I'm not using it! I always loved that quote in "Hello Dolly" about money:

I never did like the idea of all that money of yours lying around in piles in the bank, so useless and motionless. As my late husband, Ephraim Levi, used to say: "Money should circulate like rainwater. It should flow down among the people, through little dressmakers and restaurants, setting up a business here, furnishing a good time there."

Stuff is like that - it should circulate, furnishing poor college students' dorm rooms, keeping kids entertained, becoming someone else's collectible!

Ah, enough. Yes. Enough!