I‘ve been trying to clear the clutter from my life. The other day, I was walking around the house in which I live, the one in which I grew up having returned to care for my parents before they died and I was thinking about those things that I have, things that I own, that I have collected through the years, and the things that have been passed down to me from generations past.

Do they still have meaning to me beyond their memory? Isn’t the memory enough  

I have some beautiful ivory sculpture but I realized that I haven’t even really looked at those pieces in a couple years. They simply exist on a shelf. Why do I keep them when I could pass them on to someone who would enjoy them. I have little things that hold memories for me even if there is no financial value. Why do I keep those when I can just keep the memory.

The attic and the basement are filled with “things” neither useful nor even remembered. They are part of the past but not the present and probably not the future.

I think its time to empty the shelves, the boxes and the trunks and get rid of the superfluous keeping only that which I cannot do without.