Everything is so connected that to tease one thread out of my life to say "this I do not need, this thing is unimportant" is a massively daunting task, when I approach it thoughtfully. The easy target for me, of course, is plastic. But then, many of the things that made K better when she had those complications around giving birth were made of plastic. The rain barrel I am getting on Wednesday is plastic. My bike helmet is plastic. Much of this computer is plastic. So obviously it is not that.
I wanted to be glib and say underwear, but in truth Syracuse would be a pretty uncomfortable place for six months of the year without long underwear, I am pretty sure. Same for socks. I would like to say the television, but there are TV shows that I watch that I love, and that lend a rhythm and cadence to my life that are not unimportant, and there are movies that I watch repeatedly that are very important to me. I wish I could say my car was unimportant, but I need to move things from place to place frequently, and often those things are my son, and I do not think putting him on my bike in February would be wise. Or fun. So the car is not unimportant.
Every time I came up with something I realised I could not, in good conscience call any of them unimportant. I try to be thoughtful about the things in my life, and even though there are a LOT of things, they all seem to have a weight or an resonance that render them important.
What a wise question from a young person. Obviously this bears more thought, and a clearer definition of "unimportant."
3 comments:
I love that you took my nine-year-old granddaughter's question and turned it into such a lovely reflection.
Or maybe you've done a really phenomenal job already of weeding out the unimportant things? I'm only halfway kidding - I'm remembering your post about knowing the provenance of each piece of furniture in the house; most folks aren't that cognizant of the things that surround them.
I love this post. I'm late getting to it, but maybe it comes at the right time. Regardless, I think I will think about this all day. And maybe all week. I hope you don't mind if I send people here to read it (with a link on my blog)...
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