More About Stuff

Nothing makes you more cognizant of the amount of Stuff that you have in your life than moving it all from one place to another. Depending on how you lay out and organize your place, the vast majority of your Stuff can be hidden from view at any given time. But when you have to pack at all up and ready it to be shifted, you come face to face with all of it, and then you can realize just how much of it there is. But it can also drive home the point that it's just... Stuff. It's nice to have, or it's fun to play with, or it's useful in one degree or another, but it's just stuff, and at that particular moment, it's all a royal pain in the posterior.

I was once asked the question: "What are five things that you can't live without?" I like to think that I don't have anything that I couldn't do without - after all, you don't really own the Stuff that you can't live without - it owns you - and defines you, more or less. But, if I had to take it on the lam, and could only keep five things, they'd be: my digital camera, my laptop, my bicycle, my stuffed Cat Bandit and my Renaissance Pimp Hat. To be honest, my digital camera really isn't "one" thing. I'd need my speedlights, and my tripods, et cetera. But I suppose that if you defined it as "everything that fits in the camera bag," then it could be one thing (although not having my large tripods would be a pain). But I've always wondered what it would be like to just drop everything but the five items on the list, and clothes on my back. Having to take the time to pack everything else into innumerable boxes makes that really tempting.

Maybe one day, I'll give it a shot...