I guess it’s sometimes a post-holiday or back-to-school thing, where you have a bunch of new stuff all at once. Maybe I just don’t shop a lot. I don’t know. But I rode to work this morning with a new Thermos of coffee in my backpack with my new planner, a new book, wearing a new vest, new socks, new gloves and being kept dry by new fenders. The only thing I bought was the planner and the book, and those were to fill voids left by an old planner and all the books I’ve already read. I feel spoiled somehow, like I don’t have the right to be toting around all this shiny new shit that I didn’t buy but instead just took out of a gift box. The people I care about do give me some wonderful presents. So maybe I am spoiled in a way.
And of course having a bunch of new stuff makes a lot of people (myself included) re-examine their relationship to material possessions. I really love my new gloves and fenders and Thermos, but it’s the cycling in winter weather and not dropping five bucks a day to have good coffee at work thing that I really like. I suppose that’s a healthy relationship to gear, right? Using it?
I do have the tendency to pet my things though and often get very upset when a new scratch joins the dozens of others on my bike or when dust gets under the screen cover of my camera. Then I think about my bike and not riding and my camera and not taking pictures. Then, as Tyler Durden would say, the things I own end up owning me.
I’ve always struggled to have a healthy relationship to possessions, my body, my health. You can’t just ignore your pains or bike maintenance, but you can’t get attached to them, either. Tricky, I tell you. Tricky.
Photo Friday: Meditation.
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