View of Cordoba from Baluch Hostel Terrace 2
This post is a diversion from Argentina, but it taught me a lot about my temperament and my outlook on minimalism, and I wanted to share.
When you’re working towards minimalism, you learn to let material things go. You stop subscribing to the “maybe-I’ll-need-it” ideology. If you don’t need or don’t use it, you get rid of it. It can be difficult if there’s a lot of sentimental attachment, but it takes practice.
Yesterday, I hung up my only long-sleeve shirt over the railing to dry after washing. I came back 20 minutes later, and it was gone. Blown away by the wind. I walked a couple of blocks to search for it, but it was probably picked up by someone who needed it more. I bitched about it for five minutes (okay, maybe 10 minutes) but then I was over it. Time to go buy a new shirt. Except for time, most things in this world are replacable.
Earlier on the same day, the hard drive on my word processor got wiped clean. I won’t go into how it happened, but it was my own fault. My stupidity cost me 40 to 60 hours of work, and there are no backups. Everything I wrote from the beginning of this trip (October 1) is gone. I spent an average of two to three hours writing a day.
I was physically sick when I saw the blank screen and realized what happened. I wanted to throw up.
I would trade anything I have except my passport for that work back. It’s not even a difficult decision to make: any of my gear, all my cash, my credit cards. Who cares about those things? If I need gear, I go buy it. If I need more money, I go make it. Done and done.
A lot of the longer pieces I wrote, I can probably recreate. It won’t be the same, for better or worse, but it’ll be there. A lot of the material from this trip, however, can’t be recreated. There were too “firsts,” on this trip, totally new thought processes, and it’s like they never happened. They were 100 percent, certified irreplaceable.
So then what? What do you after you’ve lost you most valuable possession?
First you bitch and moan. You stand on your balcony, scream about how much you hate technology, and you curse yourself for your stupidity. Eventually you calm down, and you vow to make backups of everything from now on. You go for a run to blow some steam, maybe do some laundry. After you hang your laundry to dry, you come back 20 minutes later to discover your only long-sleeve shirt blew off the railing and is gone forever. You get back on the balcony and scream how much you hate the GAP and cotton and why does it take so damn long to dry? And the wind – the wind can motherf#cking go to hell, as well.
View of Cordoba from Baluch Hostel Terrace
Then you calm down again, and get a good meal. You make conversation with new friends. You remind yourself how lucky you are to be where you are, doing what you’re doing. You go to sleep.
The next day, you wake up. You get a cup of coffee, and head to the terrace on the roof. It’s another beautiful day in Argentina, and there’s an amazing view of Cordoba from up there. You crack your knuckles, and start on page one. You recreate.
Then later, you go buy a new shirt.
October 22, 2008 at 9:55 pm |
Hey,
I hope everything is going well with you. Keep me up to date
I’m really quite envious that you can make such a big leap with your life. While I yearn for it, I’m not sure I could do it myself. I keep saying that I would love to do it, but when it comes down to it, it’s so scary. For you to be able to do this, it takes a lot of courage and balls. You’ve got some big balls, man.
Totally figuratively speaking of course. You can’t be such a small man with big balls… too disproportionate, I think.
Haha. I don’t know. Thanks for giving me a break from the hell that is called my life right now.
October 23, 2008 at 8:33 am |
Chris, I think you put things in great perspective with this post. I often get caught up way too much with my emotions. Its like, one little thing will go wrong, and I feel like everything is ruined! But when you step back and look at it from a 3rd person’s perspective, nothing bad has really happened. All it takes is one quick change in mentality and all is fine.
I think what it is is that people like to hold on to anger, jealousy, or any other negative emotion. We just can’t seem to let go when we have committed.
The best way for me to get rid of my bad mood is to honestly just eat some food. Most of my emotional outbursts come when I’m hungry.
- Jun Loayza
October 27, 2008 at 10:41 am |
@ Thi – thanks for reading and offering an discussion on relative and proportionate size of one´s balls, haha. i think after you´ve survived camden, you´ll have a serious appreciation for life, and if this is something you´d want to do, you´d do it.
October 27, 2008 at 10:45 am |
@ Jun – food is nice, but i much prefer alcohol. and in argentina, it´s cheaper than the water, anyway. a little more destructive, but certainly more cost-effective. thanks for reading, and keep plugging away with FD. good things, man.