The recent dismantling of my present life in preparation for the next part of my life I have found to be an unexpectedly cathartic experience.
The de-cluttering of a life is something I can now definitely recommend and whether the de-cluttering is solely of unused physical possessions or otherwise is up to you, but it is a process that for me has prompted a realisation that it is perhaps something that I should have done a long time ago. I was surprised at the quantity of items that I possessed for which I had no real use. I may have had a use for them at one time in my life but there they sat in the cupboard, loft, or drawer willing me to hang on to them for just another year, just in case….
For some strange reason that I have not quite settled on, I appear to have been suffering from the delusion that most of the physical possessions that were swamping my existence were actually necessary or were actually going to be used by me at some point in the not too distant future. However, after a bout of unexpected clarity I realised that the several nearly new suits hanging in my wardrobe (my work attire from my previous life) had not only mysteriously shrunk by at least two inches around the waist but were so old that they were in imminent danger of becoming fashionable.
The cathartic part of all of this de-cluttering of a life came in two parts. The first part was the removal of the suits along with a great number of other items to a local charity shop for disposal. The shop was staffed by an amiable and well-mannered woman in her sixties who seemed genuinely grateful for my decision to choose her particular charity shop to make my donations to. The impression that what I was now doing would somehow benefit someone less fortunate than I whilst probably delusional, was at least for a short time very satisfying.
Now before going further I feel compelled to digress slightly and to make a few observations or have a short rant about charities. Without entering in to a whole debate over the effectiveness of charities or otherwise, to me charities have always been a rather paradoxical mix of well-meaning volunteers who staff the shops and sleazy blood suckers who administer them.
The shop staff in most cases are like the woman who I encountered, genuinely nice people who want to enrich their lives by helping the less fortunate. Again, without going in to any discussion about the merits or otherwise of stereotyping, such charity shop workers whilst all appearing to be lovely people are, in my opinion seriously naive. This perhaps explains why they willingly give so much of their time in working for the verminous scum who ruthlessly exploit their good natures.
The notion that a person working for a charity in an administrative capacity somehow deserves financial compensation for their time whist the volunteer shop worker does not is both deeply athematic and immoral. However that does not seem to deter these sleazebags from syphoning off large amounts of money generated by the donations and hard work of the volunteers for themselves in the form of grossly excessive wages. Not only are they predating on the donor and volunteering charity worker but ultimately these parasites are literally taking the food from the mouths of the very people the charity was founded to help. How such people can enjoy untroubled sleep is beyond me.
Observations made or rant over, take your pick.
The second cathartic part of this de-cluttering experience was just that, the de-cluttering process itself. My house is almost empty of possessions and I feel so much better for it.
The dictionary defines being anchored as “to fix something firmly in position so that it cannot move”
Like most people I became dependant on my car through laziness and unwittingly my car had become such an anchor to me. Having just de-cluttered my car to the scrap yard I now have only my bike for transport and it has magically transported me back to the days of my youth when my bike was a necessity rather than a luxury.
At this point I must clarify that my use of the term bike means and always shall mean my motorcycle and not to a pedal cycle, the preserve of the angry MAMIL’S (Middle Aged Men In Lycra) who now infest our roads and canal towpaths. My loathing of the MAMIL and its impact on ordinary people I may reserve for another post.
Riding a bike to me was always a pleasure and not a chore. I also used it as an escape from the banality that is modern life. I always believed that driving a car through the scenery was never the same as what one experiences when riding a bike. If one is too cold or too hot one can adjust the temperature in the car and if the wind noise is too great, one roll up the window or drown it out with some white noise from the car radio.
On a bike it may sometimes be too cold, or too hot, or too wet, or too noisy but at least you experience the journey, you smell the coffee and taste the files, uninsulated from reality by glass and steel you actually experience life as it is when out walking except it’s just that little bit faster. I understand that to some people cars are everything, they think of their car as living beings and treat them as one would treat a pet, they talk fondly of them to others and even perhaps give them names as one would a child… but I am glad I do not suffer from such delusions.
For me car is a merely a machine, a lump of metal with a wheel at each corner, an object to be used and then thrown away when unusable and whilst they have their uses I am glad to be rid of mine. This process had been unexpectedly liberating as my journeys to work driving a car were previously filled with angry confrontations with other road users wanting to share the same bit of road that I happened to be using at any given time. Now I really don’t give these people a second thought. The weirdest thing about all of this de-cluttering is the sense of peace that now envelopes me. No longer do dark thoughts dwell in my conscious mind, I really no longer wish to kill the guy in the white van driving like a maniac in front of me.
Before I began this process, if someone annoyed me my first reaction would have been aggression, now no-one or nothing seems able to annoy me. The only conclusion that I can draw from all of this is that my cerebral cortex after so many years of battling with my limbic system appears to have finally won the day and long may that continue.