When asked what he wasn’t keen on, a chum of mine replied, “People ‘n’ tings.”
Personally, I quite like people nowadays, but ‘tings’ are another matter. For example. I am leaving my flat in London. In it are lots of tings. I don’t need many tings – as much as I can carry is all that I can take. So I have to dispose of tings – the accumulations of seven years living in London. In Mick Foley’s (first) autobiography, he talks of his father collecting newspapers for 20 years, declaring that he’d read them all later. On finally being delivered an ultimatum to dispose of this garage full of yester-year’s news, Foley Sr. tries to read something from each as he throws them away – fighting to the last as his son puts it.
I’m very much the same – trying to extract value from the things I jettison – sticking stickers that have not yet been stuck. Sticking them to things that I’m about to put in the bin. Chewing whole packets of four year old gum briefly before spitting them out. Listening to audio books for the last time as I hoof ten year old t-shirts into the trash. If I am what I consume, then this week I have mainly been bits of wire, old aftershave, and compact discs from the late eighties. Normally, I am what I recycle – an inspection of the orange Hammersmith and Fulham Borough Council recycling bags outside my flat shows I am wine, beer and high spirits.
Getting rid of possessions does set you free. My CD collection set me free a little this morning. Fifteen years of quality music bought for around 1800 GBP collected into a bulging rucksack and peddled on my bicycle to Notting Hill, where I peddled the discs to a second hand music emporium for the princely sum of 55 GBP. So now I am free of the voluminous baggage of that outdated music format, free to spend the paltry sum on fry-ups and champagne.