Found/collected items

Here are some items I collected during the day yesterday. I had to help Kristine with her car and these were some left over rags. I also went for a little walk and found this lighter in a tree. I seem to find a lot of lighters and find myself picking them up whenever I see them. I also seem to find a lot of hair ties and pick those us too, but I actually havent been picking them up as much as I used to.

Im curious about the idea of being a pack rat, or maybe the reason why people are pack rats. Someone might not be a pack rat, but still finds the need to keep certain things. I remember that when I was younger my room was always filled with little things that Id find and it was basically all useless. A lot of little rocks that I guess I thought looked neat, a bunch of feathers, sticks, little pieces of plastic and cloth, strings and broken pieces of jewlery. I just had alot of stuff that had no real practical use, at least to most people. I remember thinking that there was all this garbage and stuff on the ground right in front of us and no one seems to bother with it. Id find a stick that I thought looked like a spoon and thought that it was a brilliant discovery, maybe I had found the relic to a small race of people or something. In any case, Id pick it up and figured that Id be able to use it somehow. I didnt want to waste this so I figured Id put it in my room and that I would eventually find a use for it. I also recall thinking this with my rocks that I collected, and that they would make great cornerstones or keystones to small structures, and I remember thinking that at some point I could collect all of my items together and construct this great sculpture.

Well I collected things for a long time, but not the usual things like coins or stamps, mainly things people didnt seem to want. And I can remember my mom asking me to clean out my room and not being able to decide what could go and what had to stay. When I started going through my collections, everything had to stay. I rememebr that I started to adopt this idea of trying to live life without the want or need of possessions. I didnt like the feeling of needing these items. The only thing that I liked about it was that the items I grew attatched to were not the neccessities people find themselves wanting to collect. They would never accumulate in any amount that would allow me to make money off of them. The rocks werent gems, the sticks werent artifacts or relics, and the feathers werent rare. Other than that, I just collected garbage. I was happy that I wasnt interested in money or things that would in the long run make me money. I suppose I felt that I was finding a sort of pleasue and treasure in these items that people didnt want, and how great would that be? If I could find enjoyment in these things that people discarded and didnt want, then it would be as if I was living on a planet where everyone threw away diamonds, so I could take them back to Earth and have a use for them. I could have the things I wanted in abundance.

After a while, I grew more interested, however, in the idea of not needing anything, and being able to get up and leave at a moments notice. For me, this meant not growing attatched to anything, such as all of these little items I collected. Because of this, I suppose the idea of creating something out of all of my junk sort of fell away. The things that I once recalled seeing on my dresser and on my bookshelf, the things that were sort of landmarks in my room just as much as my bed was, were now being thrown away. I thought about this a lot, and the idea of not noticing something until it isnt there. Maybe like a tooth that is knocked out. But when I started throwing my things out, it made me think about how, after awhile, I wouldnt mind those things being gone. I think now that this is what must have led me to my thoughts and realization that everything eventually changes and goes away. Everyone eventually moves away from home, everyone eventually grows up and grows old. Every tree eventually blooms and looses its bloom, and everything eventually dies. I can remember thinking that I was now making decisions like an adult, throwing away these items from my childhood and looking to the future. At the time, I was still very young though, and looking back on it now, these are the things that most adults wish they still had. But I suppose I was learning that its alright to wish that we had the toys and trinkets from when we were younger, but really, nothing can be held forever, and change is what is inevitable. I knew, too, that this wasnt a bad thing, and that loosing something sounds so upseting and forlorn, but for me, it was about being able to pick myself up and move away at a moments notice, which meant that I would have the tools necessary to start life somewhere else.

In any case, I have since thought about this idea of getting ride of certain staples and hard places in your life, and seeing what life is like. Loosing these items or getting rid can be relatable to the people we loose in our lives, the animals that run away or pass away, and the moves that we make, the friends we loose and the changes that happen to us physically. It is very strange when things change, we have to learn new things, new methods for completing the tasks we used to do on a daily basis with ease, which now seem difficult or just plain unfamiliar. I can remember that once I started to get rid of the items in my room, it seemed so foreign to me, and I felt as though I wasnt living in the same shelter I had been for so many years.

With this collecting of items and documenting them, I suppose Im looking to understand the way that things can be taken from us, things that are always there in front of us, and how it effects us. Maybe not having that picture of Jesus above the bed makes the room seem empty, or maybe that bottle cap no longer sitting on the desk from the gatorade bottle that was thrown out 3 weeks ago makes you feel a lot less cluttered. I suppose Im still just interested in this collecting and loosing idea. I think that I might also incorporate throwing away an item everyday of mine, as well as collecting something everyday.