Tuesday, April 16, 2013

On a normal Sunday afternoon last weekend, which started out much like the normal Sunday afternoon prior to it, something extraordinary happened, a seismic shift of self. I’m of the belief that, especially as you get older, changing yourself requires a herculean amount of effort, if not outright cataclysm. That’s why I’m regarding this episode as a freebie because, out of the blue, I’ve started selling the clutter in my life. I’ve caught the bug to divest my unwanted possessions, and it doesn’t look like I’m going to stop anytime soon, such is the lure of capitalism.

I’ve mentioned this plan to sell before, but after my last cleaning coup, the convenience of dumping stuff at Goodwill looked like a far easier option. When my old man left the country, he dropped off relics from the house I grew up in. A speaker set. A receiver. Board games. Two chess sets. Toys from the ’80s when I was, what, seven or eight? Books. Records. Nine cardboard boxes of refuse that have proved too mentally daunting to process. Why not just haul them to my trunk and get that tax-deductible receipt? There would be the warm and fuzzies to be culled from altruism as well–the thought of little Jimmy gleefully discovering Optimus Prime, for instance, on a Goodwill shelf for three bucks.

Well, as soon as I threw a few of these artifacts onto eBay and one of the listings hit three hundy in 20 minutes, with six days left on the clock, it was, like, fuck you, Jimmy. I’d rather sell Optimus to the grown man online. The old Yamaha receiver? Market’s valuing the remote control itself at $45. Suddenly, these ancient cardboard boxes transformed from garbage into pure cheddar. After I clear out this batch of stuff, it’s onto the things I no longer care for: DVDs, for instance, or old computer games. I have fond memories of them, to be sure, but nostalgia’s nostalgia. You don’t step in the same river twice, so goes the saying–the new memories I’ve been making here, now, are what entice.

Am I simply trading materialism for greed? Perhaps. I see the tension there. There’s a sense, too, of freedom, of clearing the clutter from your life. But yeah, the second income is nice. It’s like seeing money fall out of the sky, every time you refresh the screen. Take a few pictures, write some snappy copy, and presto! Junk to gold. It’s a change I need at the moment–a different alchemy for a different time.