Albatross!
I have all my life been a packrat. I have built a nest for myself which leaves me surrounded by piles of books, racks of guns, CD’s, actual record albums, newspaper clippings, furniture which should have been retired ages ago, broken electronics (which,while I’m capable of repairing them, I tend not to) and the collected effluvia of a half century of weapons grade packrattiness.
I’m done.
I have a core of books I love, and read often, and they are mixed amidst literally thousands of others. I will find new homes for the thousands, and cherish the few.
I have a round handful of rifles and shotguns with no intrinsic nor sentimental value. I have a handful of rifles and shotguns that are dear to me.I will find new homes for the odd, and cherish the few.
I have a lot of crap in my life, and it constitutes an albatross. I have had it all hanging around my neck for far too long. In upcoming months I will be making every effort to make my house more Ikea and less Paper Street Soap Company. I want my home to be less cluttered and more what I want and need. I want to surround myself with less chewed up newspaper and scrap, and more first edition and burl walnut. Organization has always been my strong point- for everyone else. I need to turn my attention for detail inward and use it at home, and make this a place where I want to be and where I am comfortable entertaining.
The last ten years, the first of a new millenia, have been rough on us all; 2010 looks to be the worst year (for the world) in my life. I intend to make it my best personal year, and do things uncharacteristic for me.
One of the changes I have made, is to begin to use Quicken. If you’re not doing this, you might want to consider it. I’ve never been good at keeping my own finances straight, and this has put me right on the edge. I know just what I need and where it’s going.
None of it is good, but at least I know.
10 comments Og | Uncategorized
Got a chuckle from the “…for everyone else.†line.
I was in QA for many years, & an ant couldn’t fart without me having a spreadsheet on the duration, tone, & particle emission; QA is ALL about organization… for everyone else.
I keep waaay to much stuff, but as a tinkerer of things & maker of new junk from old, I’m loath to part with all the crap.
And like you said, I expect things to go downhill from this high plateau we’re on now, so I think I’ll just hang on to anything that can possibly be anything else, maybe, sometime.
Good luck, anyway.
Double, the problem is I’m so cluttered I’m starting to forget what my assets are. And it is getting bad. I’m not going to lose tools, but the piles of useless crap in the basement? Sure.
Hey Og,
Letting go of personal belongings is a most difficult – if not impossible – task. Especially if you are a packrat (I’m a packrat, too).
As you know, its not necessarily the monetary value of the object that gives it intrinsic value, its the memories that are attached to it.
It is that issue that will make your task most difficult. Throw away (or let go) of the wrong thing and you will regret it for a VERY long time.
I myself have had (for many years) a larger inbox than an outbox and have accumulated things which muddied and slowed my own personal life down significantly.
Being that my life is deluged in long work hours, I have had little time for the personal side of life and am constantly trying to find ways to increase my own productivity. I have been forever running behind schedule (surfing the internet has been a serious guilty sin of mine!!!) and never been able to keep up with the workload.
One of the things that slowed me down greatly (besides the .. uh.. above mentioned) has been my own personal belongings. As I would pass through an area with something of my life – a picture of family, a book I really enjoyed,etc…), I would stop and spend time (that I did NOT have) to revisit those moments in time. Though I would enjoy the memories of people and things that are long gone, I would also suffer the consequences of not getting the work I needed done in a timely manner. So I came across this compromise:
My answer was to take ALL things of personal intrinsic value and put them into ONE room. I call it my Vault of Memories, but it really resembles a persons ‘Den’ in their home. Its VERY cluttered at the moment, but it does allow for me to get my work done in a much more productive and timely manner. It also helps me to figure out what is more important and what is less important when it comes to letting things go.
The benefits have been enormous. Far less clutter, increase in productivity (the internet is still a problem), improved focus on any given task at home. Also, If ever I desired to ‘move’ in a very draconian fashion, my task would be easy as the most important things are all in one place (beds, furniture, etc are not even close to the importance of my ‘personal’ belongings and memories).
One more thing of note: this boundary for things of personal value is not written in stone: I bring out several items at a time from the vault/Den to have at the bedside of my office/bedroom to read, look at or whatever, as entertainment before I go to sleep in the early evening. After a while I put them back in the vault and take something else out.
Just a thought.
I used to be a Mega Packrat until one day about fifteen years ago I snapped and realized that “stuff” has NO value except in my head. Living, breathing things do. I threw all the shit out and now when I look at an object, if I don’t KNOW that I’ll need it in the near future, it gets tossed out, given away or sold… RIGHT NOW.
I haven’t looked back. And I have not missed one iota of “stuff”.
YMMV.
Every so often I consider walking through the house and grabbing every third thing and either throwing it away, giving it away or donating it.
Got a lot of books I haven’t read in years and probably won’t; need to get rid of them.
Got tools that are unused or redundant and need to clear some out(know how hard it is to write that?)
Got a few guns I should probably try to find a good home for(EEEHAGGGH, do you know how HARD it is to turn loose of them?) as I rarely shoot them.
Damn, no wonder the place is always a mess.
For things light and small enough to mail or ship for a small cost to the buyer, there’s eBay and other online auctions. For the bigger things, Craig’s List and Bargain Finder. For the stuff you have that’ll appeal to a small segment of people (hams, gun ppl, etc.) there’s bbs’s of stuff for sale. I wonder if usenet is still used for selling stuff.
My parents grew up in the Depression, so became pack rats out of need. My father kept everything, including old pillows and couch cushions, and boxes of pipe fittings that turned into rust powder. He made $50,000 at the mill, yet saved soap scraps until he had enough to mush into a new bar. I was that way until I had my epiphany, too. No momento meant anything to anyone I showed it to, even of my personal accomplishments. I finally decided to sell my old toys, and made $3000 on eBay. Tons (almost literally) of old clothes and furniture went to the Salvation Army. Sadly, older furniture, even well kept stuff, isn’t worth dick on the after-market unless it’s a bona fide antique, and one that’s in vogue this second at that.
As you slowly sell it off, you’ll keep from getting seller’s remorse. If you dump it all at once, maybe you will have regrets.
As far as having a trove of valuable stuff for the “oncoming troubles,” if there will be troubles, whatever you can gather before booking for Home 2 will be all the valuables that you’ll need. I’ve spoke with enough people from Yugoslavia who lived through their troubles to see that one universal truth.
We just settled Mom and Dad’s estate in Tucson. 25 years of retirement collecting intermingled with the previous 25 years of marriage. Stuff upon stuff, they were full charter members of the Department of Redundancy Department. And now, much of it resides in Denver.
Then there’s the stack of pretty hardwoods: curly brown oak, figured cherry, reclaimed chestnut, tiger maple, mahogany, cocobolo, bubinga, padauk, vermillion that has been sitting in the storage garage all with the purpose that will be made clear to the craftsman…. “SOME DAY“.
I have few guns. Enough to be dangerous and considered an “arsenal” by the Napolitano.
The preceding does not take into account the books. Woodworking tomes of “how to” and the history of why; fantasy/sci-fi in dusty volumes; firearms/hunting/fly fishing tales and recipes for reloading, tying flies…and then there are the cookbooks.
I seem to have become some kind of post modern Jacob Marely, chained to the past, dragging an ever increasing mass of worldly “STUFF” around. It seems to have created its own gravitational field, drawing ever more detrius to create a Jovian sized mass.
I am too old for this. Time to institute intentional change. Mayhaps the Gigantor garage sale of all garage sales?
Brother Og, just do kindly let us know when the firearms to be purged might go up on GunBroker or such?
Always nice to buy one that I know has been well tended to.
Jim
Sunk New Dawn
Galveston, TX
Og, I feel your pain. :) Your commenters have great ideas though. Especially mts1. I did the same thing, getting rid of stuff slowly. After a while, I wondered why I ever kept things.
The precious few that remain are all you’ll need. Good luck!
It took me a while to put it into practice, but I came to the same realization after my first mission trip to post-Katrina NOLA. There’s nothing like shoveling all of someone else’s worldly possessions out of their house and into a pile on the sidewalk to put things in perspective.