Posts Tagged ‘stuff’
Sing About It
I couldn’t stay away from all the relative somethings for very long, but my available time is measured in mere minutes of late. The amount of unavailable time is measured in a consecutive series of hours and is being filled with non-stop action at the day-job, wonderfully secretive holiday projects, obvious chores, as well as unplanned ones like snow shoveling, errand running and a variety of elfish duties while my lovely bride is on the road. Meanwhile, the guitars rest neglected in their cases and the creative writing is reduced to an almost imperceptible amount.
Regardless the hectic pace occupying my extremely limited time, it has not escaped my notice that one of the popular trends moving through current culture just happens to be one that my mother would have really enjoyed. Glee clubs appear to be all the rage of late. Mom was a Sweet Adeline and I saw that a current vocal competition being broadcast on NBC included a Sweet Adeline barbershop quartet as one of the final five groups competing. FOX Broadcasting has a series called “Glee” and a I’ve noticed features on the CBS Sunday Morning program and in the local newspaper highlighting the renewed interest in high school glee clubs. Could standing around the piano singing at house parties be far behind? I’m not sure I ever witnessed it actually happen, back in the good ol’ days, but I’ve seen it done in pictures. I wonder if anyone will know the words to obvious sing-along songs if the opportunity presents itself. Pass the eggnog.
Pencil Geek
Of all the things in the world that deserve our attention, I hate to admit that I get hung up on things like pencil lead. When the lead in a mechanical pencil runs out, there is no way to use the final half-inch of lead. It goes against my sense of frugality to just discard a perfectly write-able piece of lead. It seems to me that with the technology available to send rockets into space and land people on the moon without crashing into satellites that are beaming cell phone conversations about what someone posted on their Facebook page, there should be some way to design a device that holds the lead, allowing it to write all the way to the end!
But it occurs to me, now that I am writing about it, that there is probably more lead than my little remnant piece, discarded every day when traditional wood pencils reach the end of their useful length. And in most of those, the lead is of an even bigger diameter, so there is a lot more waste occurring with the classic yellow number 2 test-taker. Relative to that, my mechanical is a real eco-friendly trend setter after all! What a relief. Now I can turn my attention to more significant problems like why it is so difficult sometimes to evenly engage the two-way zipper on my jacket, and thus allow it to pull all the way up. It is a rare occasion I get it on the first try.
The Stuff of Goals
Sometimes it feels easier to try to change those around us than change ourselves. I think the route to affecting change in the ones we love is through changing our own thoughts and behaviors. It can upset the balance of an ingrained, often times dysfunctional pattern, when we do finally change our behaviors, and that new imbalance can be disorienting at first. Difficult, even. But long term success is a reward for those who follow through. We become healthier, and over time, our improving health influences those around us in a positive way. Good things are worth waiting for.
- Of value to someone, or trash?
Since I’ve returned from my trek in Nepal, I’m feeling even more motivated than before to follow through on a goal that I’ve been struggling with for quite a while. I want to distribute possessions that I’ve accumulated but no longer use. Aha! This reminds me of another of those messages that I heard once and it stuck with me ever since. I think it was a friend, Soma, that I met through the Twin Cities FreeNet, who told me she was distributing books from her collection to release the ‘energy’ of them back into the world. I love that thought and have considered it ever since. I like to think about the original author, obviously, composing the information with visions of a future audience receiving value from it, but also of the editors who worked on it, and the printer and binders who handled it. Even the people who cut trees or produced the paper. They all put their energy into creating that book. If it gets read once and then stored on the shelf, that energy becomes stagnant; trapped.
For some reason, I find myself thinking about returning the energy of stuff gathering dust in my house and garage, back into the world, an awful lot more than I find myself doing anything about it. I can consider my writing about it here another small step beyond just thinking about it; my first actual action toward doing something. Well, maybe that’s not entirely accurate. Last fall we signed on with a pest control service and were required to pull all the crap out of the garage to clean and assess the related pest issues. I put my hands on a lot of once perfectly useful stuff that now hasn’t been used in many years. It was a pretty good motivator. I cleaned up old stuff. I took pictures of stuff. I talked about listing it on eBay or Craigslist. Most impressively, I successfully placed what was more accurately identified as ‘trash’ into the proper receptacle; the one that gets dumped into a big truck each week.
Surely of value to someone. Now if I could only remember where I put it.
For a week or two after that, I even made good on a goal of finding something each week that was just taking up space here and deserved a ride in the big truck that comes through our neighborhood every Thursday. But that didn’t provide the feel-good result that is the reward of returning the energy force of those who produce products, back into the world. I want to decide if freecycle.org is a group for me and finish what I started toward posting ads on craigslist.org. I want to possess less stuff and I want to release the stagnant energy back into the world. I want to move from thinking and writing about it, to doing it. A worthy and deserving goal. Am I up to it? Sure. I’ve seen one of my sisters successfully disperse the majority of her accumulated possessions. Although, she had the added incentive of having sold their house to spend retirement living in a 5th-wheel trailer. I know it is possible. I’m just not clear yet on what time table I will finally make it happen for me.
Relative Something 