Quantcast

Saturday, January 30, 2010

Modes of Being

I would like to be less focused on consumption. My days seem to revolve around undoing my past consumption (decluttering); consuming food and preparing to consume food (cooking, shopping); and consuming information/fiction (books, blogs, movies, etc.). Especially the last one.

What other "modes" of being are there? Creation, of course. That's the one I'm most interested in increasing. I call myself a writer, and have managed to do some fairly serious writing, but spend a shockingly small amount of time on it as compared to other things.

Reflection is another mode--doing nothing, or writing, or meditating. And then there's just plain action--exercise, physical labor. Maybe maintenance (cleaning, mending, fixing) is a mode of being, too, though to me that seems fairly closely related to consumption.

My financial and consumption-related activities for today:

  • Mailed BSC books off to the winner of the ebay auction
  • Posted the few remaining BSC books on paperbackswap
  • Returned a shower curtain that we were dissatisfied with
  • Picked up books that I had on hold at the library
  • Went to the grocery store and spent about $6.50 on basic groceries
  • Boiled a bunch of potatoes so we'll use them instead of letting them go bad
  • Cooked the "Spanish Rice Mix" that we've had for at least a year
  • Made the canteloupe that was about to go bad into a not-terrible smoothie (R.'s idea)
  • Got rid of a binder, a small notebook, a large journal, the sixth season of Sex and the City, two magazines, and a few assorted papers
With the removal of the BSC books and the other items I got rid of today I am finally feeling like I might be drawing closer to "enough"--my ideal amount of stuff. I only have 86 books left, and I think I might be ready to let go of a couple more. Files remain my biggest decluttering challenge, but I'm slowly making a dent in them.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I found myself addicted to the Internet -- always online, reading about lifehacks, but not actually implementing what I learned. I have weaned myself off the computer to the point of only devoting an hour, maybe two, in the morning. The rest of the day, I'm actually doing activities and working towards my goals.

Scarlett said...

@Anonymous: Sounds familiar! Good for you on focusing on working towards your goals. I think I'm getting closer to that ideal...lately I'm trying to check RSS feeds only a couple of times a week and have pretty much given up general web surfing.