I’ve been trying to get rid of things. Mostly tangible things–clothes that itch or that I got in high school, lightbulbs for lamps I no longer own, tutoring materials from the old SAT–but also digital detritus.
Items that exist only as files do take up literal space–on my hard drive, Dropbox, Google account–but I’m not generally lacking for that (at least not since I got an external hard drive). What I’m lacking is the ability to ever listen to all of the songs I have on iTunes, or flip through all of the pictures stored in disparate places, or the right keywords to find the email that I remember receiving but can’t locate…
Digital clutter is a sibling to mental clutter, which seems to proliferate during the winter when the outside world has fewer variations, is less welcoming, and encourages turning inward. Mental clutter like: How much do I need for retirement? What’s about to go bad in my fridge, making me feel like an asshole for wasting food? Which diseases do I need to keep in mind in case I ever contract a mysterious, hard to diagnose illness? Is it less wasteful to throw out that difficult-to-wash bottle or to use water to wash and recycle it?
It may not help that I’m in various places in five books*–due to losing interest for the moment, needing to finish this one first because it’s due back at the library, leaving that one at home because it’s too heavy to carry with me, and on. None of them are books I intend to give up on, but I usually limit the books I’m holding in my mind at one time to two.
*(The Only Ones by Carola Dibbell, American Gods by Neil Gaiman, Infested by Brooke Borel, A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki, and The Country of Ice Cream Star by Sandra Newman)
Dad
Talk to your Mother!