about that minimalism thing: part 3

Yesterday, I took the time to look through some of the other things I'm sorting through. Most of these things now have to be:

• digitized
• read
• consumed
• returned

This last one amuses me a bit. Returned. As in I have things that don't even belong to me that I have had so long that I started counting them as my own or at least taking ownership of them.

What was I thinking?!

Seriously. I gave someone like seven CDs back that I don't listen to because:

• I don't own a CD player
• I don't intend to own a CD player
• I have two (2) MP3 players

I still have four albums worth of pictures. Some of these.... why am I keeping when I have digital copies. Some of the people I keep to remember the way they were; what they have come has put a significant rift in our relationship and I'm not sure we're even friends now...

Come to think of it, maybe all of those pictures should go; no point in using pictures to hold onto a reality that doesn't exist anymore. If ever I find out I am wrong, I can make new pictures and new memories. I think this part of my downsizing has the most mixed emotions: it's a constant realization that most things people have tie them to the past and few things they have tie them to the present or the future.

Just look around: how many things are you looking at that are all connected to who you were instead of who you are or even might be. It's sobering. It really is.

Today, thanks to an article I read, I will be sorting some things out in my emails. So far, I have...

...sorry, I was too busy doing it to write for a while. I had six email address. Two are now gone. I'm working my way around. Mostly deleting the yahoo based addresses except one for now because they don't forward to other addresses and that I don't like.

Whatever. It's not like I need them. Most of my email goes to three addresses, so I don't need six. Half of those address were just to redirect spam. I could just delete it manually. Each of them had a million folders for organizing things. I had college papers in some of the emails with instructions to print because I had to turn them in. Old programs I wrote...

Another thing I have decided to downsize is my music. I have 800 songs. I am going to listen. Every single one that I don't really care about. That doesn't speak to me in any way, I'm removing. Seven have already been dropped.

Stay tuned. There will be more thoughts, more pictures, more to think about.