Well, minimalism. I am tackling books and it’s unsettling and scary.
I remember buying a lot of these books or picking them up at the thrift store. I remember on so many thinking, Maybe this will help me understand the world a little better.
I remember so many years and years of my life, feeling so little sense of myself or security in how the world worked. I kept looking for something else, some new piece of knowledge that would help me make sense of things. Books had knowledge inside and so I wanted something from them they couldn’t really give me, the price was very high.
I kept running into the thought here and there, that the answers were inside of me. I had a hard time accepting that. I had a hard time believing I might be running from something, from myself. After all, I was seeking answers in good places, in books. Sometimes in experiences, but mostly books.
It has only been in the last six months or so where I am starting to feel lighter in my soul. I am starting to feel grounded and that some pieces are coming together. I don’t feel as scattered. When I go places, I don’t look at people searching. People get tired of me looking at them, I know. I know I have creeped people out before. They can see me looking at them. It’s something I saw my Dad doing. I don’t think ever found peace, but he sure tried.
So yeah, I can tell I’m doing the same thing, just a lot of looking and looking in the wrong places. No confidence there might be truth within myself or have the skills to connect to divine energy or God for guidance.
I have been looking for the one answer, something that would bring all this together. It's something that's driven me for some reason, this idea that there is a silver bullet. I am slowly learning about and practicing a contemplative life that then feeds into action. But it's not everything. It's a cornerstone, but not everything. Nothing is everything, actually, now that I think about it.
Today I took my bike down to Cool Water Bikes. I did something crazy then; I hung out. I got to know the manager a little better. I asked about his time in LA, about the bike shop, about all kinds of things. I just hung out. I had no agenda and I spent about 30 minutes or so just chatting and watching him very, very slowly make coffee. I hadn’t planned on doing that and it surprised me that I did it. I can’t remember the last time doing something like that. It wasn’t a big thing, but to me it actually was. You could say I ‘wasted’ that time as it wasn’t purposeful.
So not only did I spend the time with him, I tried hard to be present. I tried hard to look him in the eyes and really listen. I tried not to let my mind drift to what I’d be doing at home later in the day.
So this is sort of how it’s working out and how the answers are coming. I’m learning to be present, to be aware of my surroundings and the people around me, to really hear what people are saying and not be thinking about what is next. I’m trying to be more present in my own body but that’s more work.
So yeah, going through this book stuff is really crazy. I don’t know what to think about it. It’s like thirty years of book buying that’s getting dismantled. I’ve got probably two grocery bags of books to take to sell or to the thrift store, and right now it looks like I haven’t taken anything off the shelves yet. It feels a tiny bit lighter but not much.
They were and still are more of my identity than I realized. I read a minimalist say the other day they only keep books they go back to regularly or are actual reference books. Yikes! That'd free up a lot of space on my shelves. I've been trying to build my identity in collecting things, learning things, keeping the anxiety at bay.
I'm not ready to ditch my whole book collection yet, but excited to keep shifting my identity to who I am and not what I do or have.