Many months ago, when we were first sheltering-in-place, I was on a Zoom call with a few friends, including Phil, who said, “Wow, your office is so distracting! I'd never be able to work in there."
Hmm. Yeah, I guess you have a point. Not only are my book cases filled to the max with graphic novels and books, piles of books have begun to stack on top, as have tubes of posters never hung, snow boarding boots? A couple messenger bags I haven't used regularly for a few years...
I’ve recently started reflecting on the clutter in my life. We’ve got a lot of room in our place, so it’s easy to slowly add to the pile of books, neat looking doo-dads and shiny objects.
So I've slowly begun decluttering.
On top of my bookshelves, I’ve got a bunch of tubes filled with posters, so I figured I could select the ones I want to keep and stick them in the flat files!
But the flat files as you may have already guessed, are filled with stuff. Since I’d been wanting to tackle the drawer I was using to accumulate hard drives, cables for hard drives, and other miscellaneous but still-technically-working media and tech geegaws, I chose that one to start!
It took me at least an hour, but I filled a garbage bag with a bunch of computer crap that had absolutely no use or value to me. It felt great, check out what my flat files looked like after I was done!
I’m killing it. I still have the “save” posters in tubes, but they’re on the floor now. I checked the drawers again while I was writing this, and I have a plan for where the posters can go. I’ll simply “recycle” the 90s era Charles Spencer Anderson posters I’ve been carrying around with me since the late 90s.
I definitely feel friction when it comes to deciding to get rid of something. “I might want to use this light box in the future… I can't just throw away all these CDs Christine and I have accumulated over the last 35 years...”
Should I drop Gavin Lux from my fantasy baseball team (.209/.247/.267 1SB)?
Why do I still have my sketchbooks from grade school through college?
The Smithsonian is not going to call.
I did just put three paintings I made 10-15 years ago in the alley. I was hoping some college kid use one of them to cover up a hole of stain on a wall in their apartment (someone did).
I've got a box of spare parts for my VW bug sitting on the floor of my office. I likely won't need them for another five years
Not sure I still need the Volkswagen?
And on and on.
I've been looking at all of the stuff around me through a more critical lens. A"WTF is this shit lens." I'm sure Marie Kondo or a Instagram guru has a more marketable way of saying it.
So I've got the list of things that I've been chipping away at. But what else can I unload from my life?
Linkage
George Will: What my 80 Years Have Taught Me
At the gallery we have a bunch of c-bin's with the SKU initial initials as WTF, for all of the miscellan'ia Tim and Jeff have collected over the years.
The Smithsonian might call.