The Meaning Of Life

I used to have a pretty bad addiction to cars. Cars can be just like a drug. No matter how many you have it's never enough! I never had enough money to get an auto stash of Jay Leno proportions, but I have owned way too many cars for me to maintain. The most I owned at any one time was five cars, none of which Jay would have given a sideways glance. I have collected other stuff too, magazines for instance. The urge to collect stuff seems to come from some misguided search for meaning. In a weird way it is almost creative. It's like making your own bizarre universe of objects that you have provided with meaning or even soul. Okay that's going too far maybe, but the attachment to this stuff only makes sense if the stuff means something.

I think we define ourselves by the stuff we get attached to. So if I had a bunch of junk cars at one time... hmm I'm not sure I like that definition of me! Thank God I only have one car now. But these old magazines, what will some future archaeologist think when he or she finds me buried under those? I need to get rid of this stuff. I don't have any car magazines anymore, but I have a bunch of ancient Life magazines and almost every issue of Oceans magazine (missing the first!). I am not ashamed of these but why do I still have them? I was saving them for some reason which I can no longer recall.

Maybe I should define myself by what I can do without instead of useless stuff I have gathered. I think that could be really liberating. I am going to get rid of these priceless treasures... but they need to go to someone who will really value them. Someone just like me! Of course there is only one person like that. Uh Oh!

Russell