“Many wealthy people are little more than janitors of their possessions.” – Frank Lloyd Wright At least four times in my life, I’ve unburdened myself of stuff. Selling, donating, giving away all my hard-won possessions, and instead of feeling loss, I’ve always felt a sublime lifting. Poverty cuts deep into the soul, and humans, preprogrammed hunters and gatherers, overcompensate by hoarding things, as a form of protection. As if things are the measure of us. As if the finer the thing we collect, the finer we are. Status through material gluttony. And in this season, this impulse runs amok, like swarming bats carrying the fruit of reason back to dark caves where it will pose as satisfaction, stuttering as long as this reassurance doesn’t acknowledge its own suspicions. I have been reminded of the way out by Erika, who wrote in this season, “I’ve been sharing with others things that I no longer need and that someone else can use.” And by Loreta J. who sent me this: I never thought I had a lot of stuff, but somehow over the course of time things would find a way into my tiny living space and take up that space. Every now and then I'd think that it would be good to reorganize things, but somehow I ended up shopping for more instead. I was making a Christmas shopping list, running like crazy trying to find presents my nearest and dearest would enjoy, and I got frustrated: Christmas is not about material things. That evening I came home without any presents for others, but with a handbag I had wanted for a long time. I put that bag on the sofa, looked around and realized—now. Although it was almost 10pm, I opened my closet, my drawers and threw everything I had on to the floor in the middle of the bedroom. And then started purging my possessions. I was shocked at how many things I had that I did not use. I looked at the pile and was afraid to even think of how much money was spent on this stuff. And since that day I have been teaching myself to live with less, and to not spend money on things I don't need. It's not always easy, because old habits die hard, but I'm enjoying the process. And come Christmas—this year I'm giving experiences instead of presents. I'm taking my mother on a Christmas trip, going on another trip with my friends and babysitting for another friend who has a family. I think such gifts are more meaningful. It’s time for working on my inner self! This Christmas, let’s give some shit away. Let’s gift what we already have to someone who can use it. Let’s recycle our hoardings and unburden ourselves. Let someone else become the janitor of our possessions. Let’s sing . . . and dance . . . and share. Like stubborn Apaches . . . Ah, Alaska. Not so long ago, Alaska was considered a backwoods relative to the lower 48 states of the USA, separated by a frozen and unknown Canada. The population of the entire state was only 500,000 people and it was considered insignificant, a land of deadbeats, dreamers, frostbitten malcontents, riding dogsleds towards frozen adobes, something best left alone and forgotten.
To the people who lived there, this was just fine; it prevented pesky relatives and associates from making the long journey north and discovering the real and delicious truth that Alaska was truly a one of a kind paradise. Then came reality TV. The Deadliest Catch. Ice Road Truckers. Alaska State Troopers. And the rush began, camera crews were everywhere. There was TV gold in Alaska, literally, and they filmed the plundering. Whenever they were in production meetings in New York or Los Angeles, challenged to reveal what they had planned next, it seemed everyone went nuts about Alaskan projects, the more preposterous the better, and so one led into another, and another, till they arrived recently at MTV’s Slednecks, which is apparently the new Jersey Shore on ice. Same stupidity; same relentless tediousness. Let me proudly introduce you to some real Alaskans, full of vitality and zest, stubbornly changing the way Alaska views itself. Not for profit, not for reality TV revenues, but for the love of it. Let me introduce you to the Alaskan Light Brigade, a loose affiliation of winter low light lunatics determined to enlighten and provoke. Please take four minutes of your time to view their latest video. It is such a worthy, quixotic project: click the link AkLightBrigade, then click on Follow the Light. Light begets light . . . Don Quixote has been on my mind a lot lately and he came to me in a dream tonight and spoke: Children of the Internet can't think a clear thought, can't think an original thought, because they are dazzled and dumbed-down by the relentless hunting and gathering on so-called social sites, with their siren calls to action based on their plundering of your personal data, their invasion into every aspect of your life, their insistence on taking away your individuality by perpetually coaxing you into being a follower, to like what everybody else likes, to post what you hope everybody else will like, driving your real self inward where it will eventually burst out as random, aggressive psychosis when you least expect it.
We weren't meant to be this controlled. This invaded. This anticipated. This mindf****d. We were meant to be free, wild people, innately kind, ferocious when necessary, musical, reverent, loyal, moonstruck worshippers of the universe, dancing in sunlight, gathering contrast, always flowing like thought, like blood, prowling about like a hungry shark, routinely turning into something else, and then something else, growing like summer corn, bursting like popcorn, like fireworks, a living exclamation point, a cyclone, a lover, a cherub, an Einsteinian lover of relativity, a raindrop, a pause, a tear, a silence, a cloud, a wonderer . . . Can we truly thrive with all this ungovernable grasping for the commercial heart of us? Don Quixote said no, and raised his weary lance, and galloped towards ____________________. |
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