So besides sitting on my bum doing nothing this summer, I was actually moving around a lot. Putting my life into a bunch of cardboard boxes and consequently taking it out again made me realize how much USELESS JUNK I had lying around. I got even more frustrated that my family wanted to KEEP some of this useless junk. This pack rat mentality really got to me and I resolved to throw away everything except what I actually need.
Of course, doing so required that I define what it was that I actually needed in the first place. The pack rat mentality seems to revolve around the fact that the pack rat never really knows what he/she wants in life. So in addition sitting on my bum and undoing all the work I did last year removing the flab off my middle, I sat around and thought about what exactly it is that's important for me. Being a physicist this involved finding first principles and deriving a system from there.
What I realized in my pondering was that there were really only two things that are important to me: the things I want to do, and the people that become important to me along the way.
Now one must understand, this does not mean people are only important to me because I use them; nono, on the contrary, it means you're more important to me if you've stuck by me as I'm trying to do the things I want to do. And maybe some people become more important only in hindsight (such as parents trying to keep you from doing something stupid), but a relationship with that person is a relationship, and you can't throw away those things. People become important to me because they either help me become a better person (which is, consequently, one of the things I want to do) or help me get where I want to go.
Now as for the first part of the conclusion, I've actually come to realize that much earlier. At the risk of sounding cliche, I realized that nothing I want in life can actually be bought for me. Or even, handed to me by someone else. The only things that really make me happy are things I accomplish myself, and that's what I want to work towards. Maybe that means I'll become a workaholic down the road, but I've said this before and I'll say it again: I like what I do.
And so knowing these things, I began to throw away things. Hella things. Got rid of trinkets that were useless. Got rid of things that had just accumulated because I wasn't paying attention. In the process, as I was evaluating how much use each of these material things still had to me, I also began to evaluate the sentimentalities attached to each one and its continued relevance to my life. Memories that have long faded from the mementos that were supposed to preserve them, people that have disappeared from my life despite the continued presence of the gifts that they gave me. It quickly occurred to me that these things kept me looking back at the way things were. If you've read my blog up until now, looking back is the one thing I dislike most. And so, I stripped down my possessions to a bare minimum, those that remind me or help me to do two things: go where I need to go, and respect the people that become important to me on the way there.
One Step At A Time
