Post Minimalist

Chatting with C-C-Claudius yesterday got me to thinking about the "bricks and sticks" of my life.

When I made the decision to run away from Vancouver and set up here on the shores of the Willamette, I did a major purge of the material accoutrements of my prior life, you know, the ones that I acquired in my maybe ill-advised plan to raise my children in a reasonably normal middle-class lifestyle.  It was only too late that I realized that I wasn't doing them any favors.

Now, my chilluns is out, and it appears that they are trying to figure out how to run their lives.  It also appears that they tend to be leaning toward the middle class American idea of stuff and mobility.

Hence the desire to write this post, as the chillun's is looking at entering the workforce, it appears that their goals are the same as the relative opulence that they see as "normal" and their due.

I, on the other hand, have reduced my load of the material a lot lately, I am now looking at reducing it a lot more.  Now, this shouldn't take too much effort.  There really isn't all than much left to get rid of.  I don't quite fill a 525 square foot apartment, so the selections for my purging seem to be getting scarce on the ground.

Furniture is down to three or four major items, bed, sofa, table, bench/chairs.  There are some smallish things like stainless steel shelves and end tables, and one has to keep fans to move air in a non-flow-through air environment, but that is still pretty scarce stuff.

I am having a serious problem deciding whether to keep the TV.  The only thing that I watch on it is football.  Seriously, I just turned it on last week to watch for the first time this season since the Eagles won the Super Bowl.  So, Do I need to keep this 42-inch anchor for a viewing pleasure that I am obviously losing any kind of serious interest in.

Clothes are an interesting problem right now.  I have a bunch of shirts and levis and socks.  I probably have too many pairs of shoes, but that problem is self solving as I continue my walking.

I need to sit down and go over my kitchen stuff.  Lord, I got a problem here.  I wrote a post in the long ago about my unnatural leanings in the direction of rubbermaid, I need to revisit this.  I am thinking that my shelf of cheap disposable food-storage dinguses need to be recycled.  Clear up a full shelf in the kitchen.  Pans and such are a little out of hand, but not much.  I am thinking that I need to sit down and ponder what I need to get rid of, but this is just a trimming, it is not a purge.

Books are a problem/gift.  I have actually begun to prefer reading on e-ink readers over paper books.  These old eyes like bigger fonts and backlighting.  Paper just doesn't provide these luxuries.  Right now my inventory is at a historic low, I foresee this going down from here.  I am guessing that I have around 50-60 books, I think that they need to go to Vintage books for credit.

Will keep you up to date.