Loosely Losing

Simplify:  Make something easier to do or understand.

As I doggedly search for the good in everything I've come up with some mini-donut gems during the pandemic and Hostess mini-donuts, fresh ones, not some off-brand mini-donut that has been sitting on the shelf at Wal-Mart or a discount food broker.  I've come up with more than I would have imagined.  For me, the lack of different activities that I can obsessively engage in has turned out to be a real blessing.  I don't feel like I'm always leaving something undone so it allows me to more deeply enjoy whatever I'm doing.  I don't have to rush through anything to get to the next thing because I don't have enough next things to fill up my day.  My morning Quiet Times are robust right now - I'm not sitting down with my eye on the clock, aware that there are four or five things queued up on my schedule.  I can let my mind idly, drift, explore.  It has been remarkably pleasant.  Peaceful.

I'm reminded of our great Ohio to Oregon decampment.  We had a three story house with a full basement and there was Stuff in every room.  Neither of us are pack-rats - there were no piles of tuna fish cans or flattened cereal boxes - but it was too easy to take something that we didn't use or need anymore and put it somewhere.  So when we started to shed things for the big cross-country move my emotions whipsawed between pain and relief.  It was freeing to lose the weight of the Stuff even as I worried that I might need the particular piece of Stuff I was currently shedding, the old piece of furniture, the coat that was a little too small, the electric shrub trimmer I had to trim shrubs I no longer had.  Of course, we shed the easiest things first and these were easier to do but as we got deeper into the piles the items became more potentially useful or had more significant memories.  We got rid of a shitload of stuff only to find that we humped about 70% too much stuff with us.

Stuff:  v.  Force or cram (something) into a receptacle or space. 
            n.  Matter, material, articles, or activities of a specified or indeterminate kind that are being referred to, indicated, or applied.

It takes currency - both the cash money kind and, more insidiously, the  emotional currency kind - to manage and maintain and control Stuff.  I'm glad to be rid of it.  I rarely think: "Boy, that piece of Stuff would really come in handy right now."  We sold a few things but mostly pitched Stuff or gave it away.  I had thousands of dollars of high end audio equipment that had been replaced with small electronic devices.  This Stuff is of no interest to anyone under 40 and of little interest to anyone older, most of whom were also sitting on tons of unused audio equipment.  It was weird and a little unsettling to jettison things that had cost so much money and been the source of so much pleasure but if I still had it there would be unopened boxes, moldering in my shed right now, comfy homes for mice and such. 

Isn't this the Buddhist way?  Letting go of . . . everything?  Losing attachments, longing, possessing?


Good riddance, Stuff.