There are tons of things I don\u2019t care for that much. Meh. Some stuff I prefer not to encounter, engage, hear, go to. I don\u2019t need to put them down, but they\u2019re just so not my cup of tea. And then there are things I sort of like. And things I really like. But what\u2019s occurred to me this weekend is that I cannot manage all the stuff I really like. Maybe I need to divide this last category, differentiating between what I like, what I really like, and what I really, really like. The point here is to think about or set a measure for what I keep. Because I have so much doggone stuff and I need to divest, not accumulate more! <\/p>\n
I was at a friend\u2019s home and there were some sculptures that really attracted me, but then again they were only one \u201creally.\u201d After all, where would I put it? It\u2019s all a matter of stuff that I have filled my home with that are in the 0.8 – 3 real-ies. How much is it enjoyable? <\/p>\n
Of course, I want it all! I have zillions of dollars and I can build rooms in my castle that will use this or that nice piece of wooden molding, or feature this or that piece of furniture. William Randolph Hearst did this in his castle, San Simeon, on the mid-California coast\u2014now a museum. But it\u2019s also an example of having<\/em> stuff, gloating over all the stuff one \u201chas.\u201d <\/p>\n You see, at another level it\u2019s sort of empty. That old spectrum of desire lays out what I want to cling to more and not so much, and I even glimpse this all as a reflection of what might be seen as a bad habit of desiring, more or less. As I get older, it\u2019s clear I\u2019ll lose it all. An interesting meditation.<\/p>\n I\u2019ve called this the Gollum Complex (and I talk about this on old blogs 994<\/a> and 1587<\/a> — near the bottom on that one). If Freud can talk about an Oedipal Complex\u2014alluding to the mythical ancient Greek story Oedipus, well, then I can allude to a character from J.R.R. Tolkien\u2019s \u201cLord of the Rings\u201d books. Gollum was a creepy half man half fish who was totally fixed on a little object\u2014the ring\u2014which was addictively \u201cmy precious\u201d to him. <\/p>\n I fear that I have a bit of a Gollum complex for so very much of my stuff. I\u2019m not proud of this, but it reflects my identity as tied up with books and notebooks that maybe I\u2019ll use someday. I\u2019m getting closer to divesting myself of all this crap, but they still call out to me, these \u201cthings.\u201d Ah, me. Well, I\u2019m watching it.<\/p>\n My life is spinning out and I\u2019m beginning to realize that who I help may have more consequence than what I have. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" There are tons of things I don\u2019t care for that much. Meh. Some stuff I prefer not to encounter, engage, hear, go to. I don\u2019t need to put them down, but they\u2019re just so not my cup of tea. And then there are things I sort of like. And things I really like. But what\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,35,26,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1981","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-autobiographical","category-mind-spectrums","category-psychology","category-wisdom-ing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1981"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1981"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1981\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1982,"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1981\/revisions\/1982"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1981"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1981"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1981"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}