<
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/commentisfree/2025/oct/27/amassed-belongings-overflowing-time-cull-tidy>
"I have an urgent desire to shed myself of goods and chattels.
The acquisitions of a fortunate life have accumulated like an overflowing email
inbox and simply must be dealt with while I am alive, and not left to my
children to wrangle when they’ll (hopefully, long down the track) be grieving.
Books and journals.
Especially books and journals! CDs. Clothes. Piles of
e-waste. Drawers of kitchen utensils rarely used. Pens! How many pens does a
household need?! Then there’s my non-digital archive – dozens of notebooks,
clipped articles, jottings and research material spanning almost 40 years in
journalism and authorship of 10 books. All must be culled while I have the
wherewithal.
My parents, well into their 80s when they could no longer live quite so
independently, were extricated from a family home that was not only decaying
around them – but jam-packed with stuff.
Every cupboard and each drawer in every room was full. I recall the house was
already overflowing with things when my mum and dad were in their early 70s and
an older aunt died … and left everything to my father. He seemed to take it
all. Think bad ceramic figurines and other knick-knacks, dozens of tea towels,
doilies (to which I have a visceral aversion), white goods and old televisions
(straight into the double garage to accompany the kitchen cupboards and sink
that had been replaced in my parents’ 1970s renovation), yet another dining set
and countless books mostly about British royals and the Irish famine (go
figure!)."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
