“The most courageous act is still to think for yourself. Aloud.”
–Coco Chanel
As I mentioned yesterday, I’ve been thinking a lot about “stuff” recently. I have a lot of stuff and I love all of it. Between us Himself and I have over 1000 CDs. I have more clothes than I should, most of them black and most of them very similar. And no matter how many books I give away more just…. appear. There are guitars and amps, a keyboard, a huge squashy purple sofa and two balls of fur that claim to be cats…. (and yes mum, I’m aware there’s cupboards full of my stuff at your house too…I’m working on it!)
I can’t imagine my life right now without all this. I don’t want to not have a TV, hair straighteners or glitter. Life without them doesn’t feel like simplicity to me, it feels like aestheticism, like that dude who stood on a pole for years to prove his love of God. I wrote about him in my undergraduate dissertation, but that’s a whole other story.
It’s not that the stuff itself makes me happy, I’m not that naive. And there’s the important distinction. There’s nothing wrong with having the stuff, with watching trashy soaps, with coveting straight hair, but the stuff does not help in my pursuit of contentment. Ultimately though (and perhaps somewhat ironically) what I have around me is part of the life I have cultivated for myself. For us. And I like my life. It’s where contentment lies.
That’s not to say that I don’t want a simple life. I do. I strive for it. Because simplicity to me has nothing to do with the stuff around me. It’s to do with the stuff that’s in my head. To me simplicity isn’t about getting rid of things – at the end of the day things are neither here nor there. To me simplicity is about not thinking too much, not overanalysing, letting go and allowing things to just be – Ishvara Parnidhara.
As long as my physical stuff, those things that make me comfortable, don’t distract me from the pursuit of simplification of the mind, or distract my thoughts elsewhere, then they become just a part of the life I want to live right now.
After making the ultimate sacrifice and sacking the car in January, I think I’ll carry on loving my stuff.
All that sitting around thinking too much though, that can definitely get sent to charity!! 
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That said I am intending to embark on two little projects in the near future. In my year of mindfulness I need to stay aware of what I have and how I use it and that includes my time. So first up I’ll be trying to work out where some of my time goes and give some of that time back to myself a la this post from Kimberly Wilson. Secondly in an attempt to see how many of those oodles of clothes I have I actually miss I will also be taking part in Heather’s Six Things project. Apparently accessories, underwear, outerwear, shoes and workout gear don’t count, so this could be a lot more fun than you’d think!
I won’t be starting either of these until September for reasons that will become abundantly clear over the next few weeks, so more then!
(the south bank book stall, london – by moi)
