I think asking someone how might i gift you something meaningful might be a nice question to ask. I have an idea for a gift for my son, and want to do something I know he’d like or that i think he’d like. I want to have it still be a surprise, but the truth is …what if that isn’t useful for him??

I have a co-worker who buys new releases on DVD instead of taking his family to the theatre when the movie is out because he says it’s cheaper. I love going to the movie theatre and would rather have the experience than a plastic disc collecting dust on my shelf.

I’ve also never had an attachment to books. I don’t like spending money on them, because I rarely reread the same ones over. I always tell people that if I want to visit my books, I can go to the library. :)

I’ve been slowly and steadily unloading possessions over the past 4-5 years, but will likely not go quite as far as Ms. Siberry. I like giving people things to take away from my house and it gives me pleasure to watch unused things leave. I also hate both giving and receiving gifts because I’m “supposed to” and always, always have. I wind up giving away most of the gifts I receive since I find them a burden and I don’t like to have things I won’t use. I much prefer giving a gift if and when I see something that shouts a friend’s name, announcing to me that it should belong to them. That makes me the most happy (and I think it makes for the best gifts). But it’s sometimes challenging to live in a world in which others don’t always understand this. I’ve had a couple of experiences in which people have been resentful when I didn’t enter their “gift-giving” world in the way they thought I should or they’ve used my distaste for gifts as the measure of their value to me rather than noticing the other ways in which I show my care.

Am working on reducing the storage space for photographic slides: We are devoted photographers and over the decades have collected our good shots. First, we had them scanned into digital form. Now as we check them and label them, we are removing them from pages and stacking the slides into compact boxes.

Have started the transition from cassette tapes to digital files

Love the idea that fresh toiletries (goos and slime – can you tell I don’t use that stuff) are welcome at the shelters in my town.

I stay inspired to freecycle, send old media cases to GreenDisk, and carry books to the Friends of the Library, by reading this quote

“To keep the atoms in flow, that’s the idea. It is as much to keep the aluminum flowing that I fetch it from the littered woods as for looks or pennies per pound.
Recycling is one of the few completely good things there is, as much for the pure idea of it as the resource sense it makes.”
Robert Michael Pyle in WinterGreen

I collect my thoughts occasionally. :-)
.-= Beth Terry´s last blog ..PACT: Changing the World through Changing my Underwear =-.

1) don’t have more possessions than you could personally move to an entirely new place in one day.

2) when you die, leave only enough personal stuff that your heirs can lug it home in their cars.

I second what Julia says about the library – a wonderful place where so much is available – books, DVD’s, CD’s. My local library, a short walk away, has a fabulous “for sale room” manned entirely by volunteers where you can buy books for a dollar or two. It is so well maintained that I never find an empty space on the shelves ’cause they are fanatics about restocking.

Ebay is my friend – I’ve unloaded everything from stereo speakers to a motorcycle there. My asking price always starts at 99 cents because I want things to move – out. Stuff never fails to find its value there.

Just think of having all you own on a big sled that you have to pull. Ugh. Travel light through life, mentally and physically. It can’t help but make you smile to have the freedom.

Now here is a question for the fair sex. What is it that is so appealing about tchotchkes? Judy will take me into little shops that are simply stuffed with all kinds of knick-knacks that have no practical value beyond decoration. It is so easy to fill a home with them. What is the appeal? Some might say it makes a place “homey” but others might call it cluttered. At the extreme, Scandinavian homes can look amazingly stark and cold to Americans.

Of course, on the male side, we have a neighbor who built a huge garage and installed lifts. He can get in six cars – three on the ground and three lifted up above them. So there is a collector thing going in all of us…why?

I’ve only bought one movie in my life – Dances With Wolves. Not surprising since I admire the way the Indians could pack up and move in a jiffy. As for music, I transferred my old LP’s to CD’s then never listened to the CD’s!!!

What we all need is the capacity for metacognition – the ability to be aware of our thinking; to think about why we think the way we do. We need to have a tiny Mr. Spock inside that can take us out of our emotional world from time to time to ponder what we do.