Confessions of a cluttered mind

Oct. 26, 2006

Dear Leslie,

At home during a long, frustrating search in vain for a video that purports to reveal the truth about golf I experienced a sudden flash of self-realization.

Who am I?

I'm a man with a cluttered life.

Last year while my office was being renovated I boxed up the nonessential items. They're still sitting in three boxes on my office floor. Once in awhile I peek inside a box to see if anything inside might be of use. The answer is always no.

The clutter at home seems worse, maybe because it's so spread out. DC and I probably have five hammers and 10 flashlights in the house, but try finding one when you need it. So, we buy more. You don't really know what you have if you can't find it.

Last weekend I went through my closet throwing out clothes I hadn't worn in years. They filled a huge box. Why was I keeping them?

DC admires our neighbors Robyn and Frank for putting only one bag of garbage out by the curb each Thursday morning. We put out two overflowing garbage cans and not because we don't recycle. We do. Our recycling bags bulge, too.

We can only deduce that we consume more than they do.

The average American produces six pounds of trash daily. That amounts to 84 pounds a week and more than 1,000 pounds a year between the two of us.

In the San Francisco Bay Area a group of 50 professionals who call themselves the Compact have pledged not to buy anything new this year aside from food, underwear and items necessary for their health and safety. They believe our consumer culture is the source of many of the world's ills. At meetings and through a blog they trade information about places to get the used and free things they do need.

They are in accord with the Hindu and Buddhist concept of ahimsa, doing the least harm, in this case to the earth.

A dejunking expert named Don Aslett promises that removing clutter from your life will improve your relationships, save you money, reduce the stress in your life, help you lose weight and is the true secret to freedom. When you no longer spend so much time tending to your stuff, he says, you have time for the things that really matter: Love, attention and affection.

As a 90-year-old woman who lived through the Depression told Studs Terkel in his book "Hard Times," freedom is not what you have but what you can do without.

Ascetics in every spiritual tradition have sought God by eschewing an attachment to material things. I do not propose anything so extreme for myself but have come to realize the godliness in living better with less.

Love, Sam

Sam Blackwell is managing editor of the Southeast Missourian.