Human Paraphernalia

Things. Stuff. Items. Possessions. We started our upright career on earth as hunter-gatherers. These days, most of us are just gatherers. In terms of food, it's from Trader Joe's or your local Walmart, but we tend to spend our tenure collecting random life memorabilia to fill up our homes.

I recently got the flu and in an attempt to sit on my hands I watched the movie "Leave No Trace". I found it pretty boring and really wouldn't recommend it, but it approaches this subject of not needing more human paraphernalia to fill our voids.  At one point the main actor states to another "we don't need more things." That rather anticlimactic line has stuck with me for the past couple of weeks.  We really don't.

I just bought a home as a single dude. Firstly, I didn't realize that Target has over 250 options for curtain rods. When we're little kids and there are 32 flavors of ice cream at Baskin Robins that we have to choose from, that was training for curtain rod shopping. Funny side note, when I typed in 'stuff' to Thesaurus.com, a digital ad populated above it for curtains and rugs. Oh, the irony.

Back from that tangent, secondly, it takes a lot to fill a home.  As much as I want to have everything perfectly decorated and in place, I can't help but wonder what is going to come of all the furnishings I'm adding to my collection post mortem? Morbid, yes. Perspective, yes.

I'm not hopping on the Minimalist train here. I'm sure Marie Kondo and a million other media sources can preach on that for me. In fact, I love finding something unique that I can look at every day that brings me a sense of appreciation. I also love the release of giving my possessions away to someone else who sees value in it.

Prior to the bank and I purchasing a home together, I spent the 3 years before slowly and strategically getting rid of as much of my stuff as I could. The feeling was freeing. I loved offloading at my local Goodwill. Something I put into practice was to have a running bag of Goodwill items. So every time I was organizing a closet or trying to find a good storage spot, I would mentally check whether it could go in my giveaway bag.

I loved knowing that at any moment I could get a truck and load up my entire life if I wanted to move. I get why people give away everything they own when they're elderly. They're looking back on years of experience and they know what's important. It's not their bedframe or curtain rods or Yeti cooler. It's the people they loved along the way.

Food, shelter, water, sex. The basic needs that motivate us to move around when we're awake. Care less about things. Care more about people. Yep.

New in my life: There's a good beer from a good state I'm diggin. Livin on love, buying on time. Sticking to my guns about bow hunting.

Keep smilin'

JM