being defined by our things.

i've often heard that people are defined by the things that they own. that what we are passionate about can be summed up by the things that we spend money on. if this is in fact true, then right now i am not much. or at least it doesn't look like it. i am stacks and stacks of cardboard boxes. sitting in my parents basement, no less. presently my life has been compressed into many, many small cubes, compartmentalized by their contents, which have been arranged by function, or by their similarity in function with other objects.

it's quite interesting moving places of residence. i like to be organized as it is, or should i say i like for things to have their own place. so when i put everything i own into a place that is not it's own, essentially into the same place, i didn't really enjoy the thought of it. Everything seems, well, out of place.

but, i do enjoy the idea of it. the idea that all this 'stuff' doesn't have a real place anymore. That now it really does belong in a box somewhere. because in truth, most of it is just plain useless anyway. items that have been collected, consequences of living in one place for 4 years.

but what i like even more, is the fact that i get to leave it all behind. that now, since these objects have found their place in the anonymity of a wall of cardboard, they no longer have significance. they have lost their place. making it easier for me to leave them behind.

easy or not, though, i can't take it all with me anyway. Because you see, moving to another country puts many limitations on one's idea of how many things they actually need to be comfortable, to live, to survive.

i love it. not having things, yet having the ability to be mobile. to travel light. To travel vulnerable. Leaving behind your blankets of security, the things that we folded nicely into boxes. Traveling to expose yourself to a world that you so desperately want to return the favor.

The favor of shedding the ‘stuff’ that builds these cardboard box walls between us. Breaking down these barriers that are nothing but stuff in a box. In order to leave behind something more meaningful and valuable than anything we could find to fill them with.

The heart.

rocky votolato

white daisy passing

(click the pictures to see the white daisy passing video)