“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 . . .
1 Comment
I decided I wanted to send everyone an open Christmas card and I wandered about trying to find the perfect image. Yet, as I described in my posts last year, Christmas off the Sled and Christmas Looming, all the decorations are the same, and even though a Chinese teacher told me that Christmas is becoming popular in China—second only to the Spring Festival, it really is a nonevent. I wandered beneath the great December moon this year—such a lost, Jesus holy moon shining on a manger—trying to get my Christmas card money shot, but it was elusive, bashful. I got lots of shots but none that was able to capture its compelling, luminescent, Mona Lisa full moon smile. Instead I wrote a poem The Color of the Moon: The color of the moon is vacuum-packed sunlight an orbedcontemplationmagnet waxed lemon ice fire pockmarked with deep-cratered melancholy the earth’s soul the sun’s ego orbiting madly as lovers do . . . Then I realized it: The perfect shot would be the absence of Christmas. And so, here is Christmas in China, an empty mall photographed in late afternoon on December 23rd, 2013. Contrast this with what the malls in the U.S. would look like on the same date. Indeed, there are some subdued clues that it is Christmas (just for fun count the clues in the photos), but it still has not, as of yet, broken out wildly in China. |
|