Moving

I'll be moving in a few days. My lease expires Monday; my roommate and I will be handing in our keys on Sunday. I had previously moved most of my mathematics books to my future place of employment, and I started assembling other books into boxes last night. So far, I've managed to fill four boxes, and I can probably fill one more with what's left. (This would include some math books that I use now as references for two journal papers I'm writing.) I also packed a printer and a phone, but that didn't require nearly so much effort.

Now I have to pack software boxes, research notes, kitchen wares, winter clothes, etc. The list goes on and on; I'll probably discover more things to pack as I go along.

The fact that by now I've filled six boxes with books is a source of both disappointment and pride. We'll take pride first: with one or two exceptions, I've actually read these books, including the math texts. Someone may read that and misunderstand: he's only read six boxes of books? Heh: these are the books I've bought, read, and kept over the years. Besides my recourse to public libraries, every few years I manage to prune away a number of books that I think I don't really "need".

That brings us to the disappointment: when I left seminary some years ago, I was obsessed with simplifying my life down to a point of pure necessity. My goal was to strip things down to the point where moving would involve one or two boxes and a suitcase, nothing more.

Instead, I have six boxes of books alone, and strictly speaking I don't "need" any of them.

Then there is my unfortunate domestication. The vacuum cleaner alone needs a box; then there's the bookcases, the chairs, the desks, the table, the bed... I suppose I could wiggle a little bit and fit a lot of this stuff into a giant box; I'll be renting a 10×10 storage room for two months, and that will take care of the vast majority of my belongings. However, I did not mean a 10×10 box six years ago.

That said, it's an interesting exercise to look around and ask myself: how much of this stuff do I really need? A professor of philosophy once told us that Marx questioned the large libraries of wealthy men, asking how many of those books they actually read. Now: I'm not wealthy; I don't consider my library large; and I've made no secret of the fact that I consider Marx a nutter and his theories a tragedy to humanity. Nevertheless, even if I've read almost all my books, do I really need to hold on to a copy of Dostoevsky's Demons, or Heller's Catch-22? do I really need my first abstract algebra book from 1991 or 1992, or my real analysis text from fall 1993? That answer's easy: no.

Perhaps, then, I should donate these books to a library? I could also donate my bed, my desks, my bookcases, my table, and my vacuum cleaner to the poor, then start anew in two months when I land in Rocky Mount, acquiring the things I need, when I need them. I wonder: what would St. Dominic do? I could also give away most of my clothes, which I don't wear anyway — and it's not as if I own very many clothes to start with.

In that case, I could probably condense my life into two boxes and a suitcase (or two), as well as a container of important documents (tax returns, employment history, etc). The question then becomes: is it something I should do?

This is apart from the question of whether I will do it; the answer to that is easy: NO. I have reasons to hold onto these things, especially the bed and desks. The books are more of an impure attachment (funny that I should call them an "impure" attachment, but to a degree it's true), but I can't bring myself to give them away, knowing that I would start buying the very same books again in two months, beginning with Demons.