[i]
DCL
It began with a luxury watch, then another. These were followed by diamonds and jewelry, fancy cars and luxury apartments. There were flowers and vacations, clothes, and shoes. These gifts didn't make Yovanna Guzman love her boyfriend, the leader of a notorious Columbian drug cartel, but they did impress her. "When you get dazzled, you get carried away," she explained, and once that happens, it becomes easy to ignore the darker side of a person.
Eventually, however, she realized that "all that glitters is not gold." Guzman says that she feels "all of us have a price up to a point. Sometimes you feel luxuries like the designer clothes, shoes and handbags are important. But afterward you realize you're empty inside." Her journey towards this realization did not end until her boyfriend was murdered by an ambitious lieutenant in his organization.
Fortunately, few of us have to cope with the pressures and dangers of Guzman's extreme example. Still, the message is clear: Devotion to material things is a sure path to unhappiness.
Indeed, without near-constant attention, everyone will allow clutter to creep into their lives. For most of us, this is not a problem. Sure, our closets might be a bit out of order and our bookshelves a little crowded, but the things that surround us do not control us. Unless, of course, they do.
Lloyd Alter reminded us of Thoreau's admonition:"Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity! We are happy in proportion to the things we can do without."
What Can You Do Without?
"Certainly not my collection of comics!" I scream, fingering their lovingly sealed poly bags every time I hear such a question. Thoreau, I don't think, would be very proud of my reaction.
Nor would modern advocates of minimalism. Leo Babauta, author of books and Zenhabits.net, has a simple process for clearing away the excess from our lives. He asks us to pile all of our things in one place, pick out the essentials, eliminate what's left, and organize what you keep.
It sounds easy enough, until I get to that 16-year-old issue of [i]Star Trek: The Comic[/url] with its terrible art and nonsensical story. It deserves the trash bin but then I remember it was the first comic I ever bought!.
Leo is a man that loves quotes. When talking about his four steps to a simpler life he intones Confucius: "Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated." Leo is also a smart man because this quote seems directed specifically to people like me: Those who freak out just thinking about what minimalism might mean for their sentimental collections.
Life is Really Simple
Life is really simple, Confucius is telling us, so just relax and think about things for a minute.
I return, with a calmer head, to my comics and Thoreau's questioning. What can you do without? Thoreau, it seems, is not asking us to shed every object from our lives, he's talking about a proportion. He's talking about getting rid of the senseless, the meaningless, and the wasteful. Elimination, he is saying, is about refining meaning. Meaning, he implies, is what valuable.
Yovanna Guzman didn't have to give up her gifts to find meaning; it was made clear when a jealous boyfriend had her shot in the leg. When he was killed, she says "I felt the golden cage had been flung open, and I could fly again."
No one is going to get shot over my Star Trek comics, or my neighbor's trashed recyclables, or my friend's SUV, but Guzman's story does make me realize: While others may guild the bars, we construct our own cages.
