I will say again: I don't know of a single person who does not have to battle with stuff. It is completely understandable that this task especially difficult for you now. I mean in moving, to/from Rochester and now to Harlem, have you ever really gone through your stuff before or has it just been a matter of shifting storage? This is not a failure on your part. This is life. I implore you to look on this sorting through of boxes and papers as an opportunity of a future of better organization and less clutter--where the things that really matter to you can be found and protected. I am terribly sad it's proven a trigger for all sorts of self-deprecation.
I feel like the tactics used for your books is completely applicable to the rest of your stuff. The only issue is you knew what books you had. I don't believe you yet have full scope of the ephemera you wish to keep. To do so, you have to pare down those boxes, find out what's left, and then develop a system and stick to it.
How much has that simple filing container for bills simplified your life already? Confronting our stuff, and consequently our activities of buying and saving, is extremely difficult. I remember when I got a free subscription to the WSJ one year I began to save the papers because, of course, if not read I would browse through them before I recycled them. No surprise, my browsing period never happened. Months passed. Finally I realized I was turning into my father and immediately chucked the whole lot. It was so painful to recognize those tendencies I hate most in him in myself, but I had to least I start building my own newspaper prison. If you ask my dad about why he saves papers he will huff and leave the room--I don't think know why anymore.
I don't think your turning into my father, your father, a certain roommate, or really anyone with a hording issue. I think you're just a person who has lived and collected stuff while living, but is probably best suited by evaluating and organizing his collection. It's only the aversion to this sorting which is dangerous, not the stuff itself.
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branchandroot
(no subject)
Date: 2008-06-12 02:03 pm (UTC)I feel like the tactics used for your books is completely applicable to the rest of your stuff. The only issue is you knew what books you had. I don't believe you yet have full scope of the ephemera you wish to keep. To do so, you have to pare down those boxes, find out what's left, and then develop a system and stick to it.
How much has that simple filing container for bills simplified your life already? Confronting our stuff, and consequently our activities of buying and saving, is extremely difficult. I remember when I got a free subscription to the WSJ one year I began to save the papers because, of course, if not read I would browse through them before I recycled them. No surprise, my browsing period never happened. Months passed. Finally I realized I was turning into my father and immediately chucked the whole lot. It was so painful to recognize those tendencies I hate most in him in myself, but I had to least I start building my own newspaper prison. If you ask my dad about why he saves papers he will huff and leave the room--I don't think know why anymore.
I don't think your turning into my father, your father, a certain roommate, or really anyone with a hording issue. I think you're just a person who has lived and collected stuff while living, but is probably best suited by evaluating and organizing his collection. It's only the aversion to this sorting which is dangerous, not the stuff itself.