DECLUTTERING or FOCUSING

 The New Yorker re-posted a classic of its articles (according to them) "A Guide to Getting Rid of Almost Anything"   https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/02/28/a-guide-to-getting-rid-of-almost-everything-decluttering

True to the title,  it is mostly about how to get rid of stuff mostly by posting online at various sites,  with some interest in recovering compensation for doing so ($$) but also comments on charitable donations.  Nothing much is said about why  to get rid of the stuff,  only that you no longer need or care about it. 

I am also currently in the process of "decluttering" but I don't call it that and don't think if it that way.  I am getting older.  I realize that there is no burial mound or pyramid being prepared to hold all my clothes, books, and other stuff for my journey into the next world (whatever that is).  My stuff will not go with me.  (For those interested, listen to Kate Wolfe's "In China or a Woman's Heart".)   I still enjoy listening to some  recorded music,  and even on occasion watch a (not streamed) DVD movie.  I have re-read a few books,  but most of them will never be read again,  and sit on the bookshelf only to inform others of my reading history.

I am still very much interested in life,  my life right now,  and my life as it unfolds today, tomorrow and whenever, until it ends.  But much of my past life does not interest me, except when recounting it at parties in response to other's prompts.   The past is over, and lives in the present by how it has molded and guided me.  Our house has many objects that are associated with travels or other past events.  They are the stimulus for enjoyable memories from time to time.  The things we hold onto as stimuli for special memories are anchor us with the past, but must not replace the present, or distract from  its unfolding.  

More and more,  I think of removing things from my life-space to reduce the distractions of the past and facilitate focusing on the present,  and its unfolding into the future: FOCUSING.  There is only a finite amount of human life time,  measured in seconds, minutes, hours, days, and by actions that I choose to do.  Each action uses some of this time, and must supersede other possible actions that are not done.  And the stuff around me calls out to attend to it,  to use it, or to do something else.  

What if some day I change my mind and decide to do "that" action instead of "this" action?  What if I really need that guide or tool or instrument or something  to do some action, instead of what I am doing now?  This is the "Frost Dilemma": "two roads diverged in a yellow wood,  and would that I could travel both..."  Holding onto things, books, tools, is grounded in the dilemma of commitment.  If I decide to follow one path,  and still hold onto the resources for another, in case I need it sometime in the future, seems to make good sense.  But it reveals the uncertainty and anxiety of my commitment to the decision being made.  It is a "hedge against failure", and eventually life gets filled up with these "hedges".  My life does anyway.

So I am clearing out things that do not contribute to the life I am living now, and accept that by doing so, they will never contribute to my life in the future.  And that is OK,  that is the reality of the finite-ness and limitation of being human.