Stuff!!!

“So, on and on I go, the seconds tick the time out. So much left to know, and I’m on the road to find out.”

Cat Stevens from the Song “On the Road to Find Out”

“Truth is ever to be found in simplicity, and not in the multiplicity and confusion of things.”

Isaac Newton

“That’s all you need in life, a little place for your stuff. That’s all your house is- a place to keep your stuff. If you didn’t have so much stuff, you wouldn’t need a house. You could just walk around all the time. A house is just a pile of stuff with a cover on it.”

George Carlin

I hope this posting finds everyone well. These are very strange times. When I sit in my quiet time in the morning, I often find that I feel sort of “empty”, as in I really don’t know what to make of all of it. So, this might give you a sense of how much value there will be in this writing. I read the other day that bloggers “fail” because they don’t give anything of value to their readers. They went on to say that just spouting your opinion is not of value to your readers. But………… that was my whole goal with the blog – I WANT to spout off! Now in my own defense as I study the things I am spouting about I often learn things that I share with you that MIGHT be of value.

Isn’t it kind of strange how one event can start a chain of events that have an unexpected outcome? This happened to me this week. I heard from an old college friend and roommate. He had been doing some house-organizing and came across a couple of pictures of a camping trip to Rocky Mountain National Park long ago. Funny, I have been on that same mission lately – organizing, simplifying and discarding. I am really bummed that Goodwill and other “stuff-recycling” centers are not taking donations now. There is going to be a hell of a load waiting for them when they finally open again. What is it in these days that causes me and others to want to go simplify and downsize? Maybe its just that we are colossally bored and this is something to do. Or maybe there is this need in old age to “prepare” and to not leave a mess for our kids to go through. I recently read an article in the Wall Street Journal whose title as I recall was “Your Kids Don’t Want Your Stuff”. Or at least if that wasn’t the title it should have been, because that was the gist of the article.

Anyway, searching through my memory about that trip it brought to mind that period in my life. I am sure that we all do this to some degree, we associate times in our life with certain music. So, this all brought Cat Stevens to mind (or Yusef Islam as he is now known). One of the neat things about today’s technology is that it provides ready access to old stuff. So, I went on my Amazon music and sought out Cat Stevens. Wow, I forgot how much I enjoyed his music and what he had to say. He was certainly wise beyond his years – artists are kind of that way aren’t they? And I came across the lyrics written above from one of his lesser known songs that is one of my favorites. Because even at my advanced age there is still so much left for me to know and I am on the road to learn it.

Simplification is one of the things that I am still learning about. Our understanding of life’s meaning changes as we go through the various phases of life. When we leave our parents’ homes we feel the need to acquire things of our own – we can no longer use the things that are owned by our parents. So, we need cars, we need furniture and appliances, we need clothes, we need kitchen equipment, we need laundry equipment, we need sports and fitness equipment, we need yard equipment, we need a boat and a motorcycle and we need a house or maybe two houses and garages and storage places to put our stuff in. As George Carlin says, our house is just our stuff with a roof on it. We find a place near people just like us who are also accumulating stuff and living a certain lifestyle – this involves travel and recreation and kids. And we all know how much stuff KIDS require us to have!!!! But as we go along the road that Cat is talking about and we start to contemplate the end of the road, it becomes clear that we really don’t need all of that stuff and actually it is kind of a burden. We feel the need to divest ourselves of it. Sadly, unlike our generation, as noted above our children want no part of our stuff – its dated, its old, its out of style and if they really need stuff of this nature, they will acquire their OWN stuff – and that will be the stuff exactly as they want it. So, we try to bring our stuff to agencies who hopefully can get our stuff to people who are not so blessed, who actually can put our old stuff to some use. But sometimes our stuff really has no value to ANYONE and it is just a burden that can only be discharged – to the landfill. It probably says something about me, but I find that a lot of my stuff already has been or is in the process of being destined for THAT ultimate resting place.

But getting back to simplification – I want to leave you something of value in this blog; this is how I have been told to increase my readership. So, here are some helpful hints at decluttering:

• Wait for your significant other to be indisposed – they could be napping, out of the house on errands or just otherwise away. Go to one of those out-of-the-way places where stuff is and throw that stuff in a bag. Ideally you would get the stuff to Goodwill before they awake or come home, but if not, you could place the stuff out of view and dispose of it later. IF and WHEN they ever notice that the stuff is gone, you just feign ignorance.
• More difficult – your own stuff – I wait until laundry day. Many of you know that I do our laundry and that it involves a beer refrigerator in our laundry room. The laundry room is adjacent to TWO of our storage rooms where there is a lot of stuff. I sort the laundry and load the first load. I administer one Miller High Life. I sit down and reflect. I administer a second Miller High Life. I move the first load from the washer to the drier and administer a third Miller High Life. I load the second load into the washer and open the door to the storage room. At this point I am much less attached to all the stuff and I tear into it putting the stuff into bags destined for Goodwill or the landfill. I move the stuff into the garage hoping that this discourages me from bringing it back in. This usually works because to bring stuff back in would look really stupid.
• Go into the storage rooms and using an agreed-upon-in-advance marking system, designate stuff for disposal using We Got Junk or Junk Kings. Schedule the removal for a time when you and your significant other are going to be gone. When you get home, pretend that it was a break-in, fake outrage, and volunteer to handle all the reporting to the police.
• Make sure that the stuff that needs to be “addressed” is stored in the lowest level in your house, ideally close to the water heater. Open the drain port at the bottom of the water heater making certain that water damages the stuff that must go. When the “damage” is discovered, fake outrage and disappointment and volunteer to take care of the insurance claim. Take the stuff to the landfill. Later report that your policy does not cover such an event.

Now I realize that these helpful hints involve deception and half-truths – OK lying. This may lead to a future discussion on the age-old question: Do the ends ever justify the means? Still, I am hoping that you will find these practical, real-world solutions are of value and that you will continue to read my rantings.