Heck I have rooms I don’t event go in… having a big house is a curse and a blessing… mostly a blessing though.. it’s fun to get lost in one’s place, after living in apartments most of my life… Moving though, that’s what gets me to clean house, I use the “have I touched in in the last 3 years?” rule, to help decide what to keep vs toss…

-k

http://newmarketingresources.com/why-sales-letters-are-so-ugly/

jKlehe, Boerne, TX

PS: I lost Diane’s address otherwise I would have emailed.

I overcame my pack rat tendencies by living on a boat for 6 years. Over the course of sailing 17,000 miles with mostly Mother Nature for company, you quickly learn what’s important to you.

We’d originally planned on doing dive charters in Curacao off our boat while maintaining a land base there. However, when we arrived in Curacao after sailing there from Connecticut, we met some wonderful folks who were cruising the world on their boats. For the uninitiated, cruising is sailing to some of the most beautiful places on earth, stopping whenever you want for however long you want, all the while living on your boat.

Sounded good to us but we first had to sail back to Connecticut and pay a visit to the houseful of goods we had in storage. In 3 days I reduced 10 pallets of stuff to just enough to fit in a 9 x 12 storage space. That was without a doubt the most liberating thing I’ve ever done.

Now that we’re land-based again will the stuff start to accumulate? Nope, because we’re planning on going right back out there on a bigger, better boat as soon as we have the funds. Out there every day is truly an adventure.

Thanks for an inspiring post, John.

You’re a true road warrior… I thought I was cool for hanging out in Vegas a few extra days.

A random contact by an old friend sent me down memory lane last week. I was amazed to recall that, in my 20s, I moved from Tampa to Chicago … Chicago to L.A. … and L.A. back to Fla with all I owned (or needed) crammed into the trunk of my ‘84 Delta 88 each time.

And that includes 2 boxes of journal notebooks, and an acoustic guitar I could only play “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door” with, but liked how it felt pulling it from the trunk and into the motel room. (Like inspiration could hit at any moment and those 4 chords might form a new path altogether.)

They were great times. My stand-up comic friends and I criss-crossing the country like Gypsy jesters, playing all the same clubs, but never the same week. (Club owners knew - or learned the hard way - never to book us together) We would stray 6 hours off path if it meant one night just to hang out.

No cell phones, no GPS, no Internet… Just 5 minutes on a payphone… “there’s a jazz joint in Uptown called ‘The Green Mill’… be there Tuesday night.” And that was all it took.

Everything seemed relevent then. Roaming the nomad’s path, free of clutter, you could read the signs…

The way an uncommon song would rise from the jukebox at just the right moment. And you’d say, “Who played Waits?” … 3 hours later you had a new friend, a new story.

Fifteen years and a family later, it plays in my mind like a movie I saw once. Sort of like a Kubrick film… No clear plot, but many classic scenes.

Just glad I got to live it. And through it. And past it.

Anyway, missed the blog. Glad to have you back and sparkin’ thoughts again, John

Kevin

John Carlton replies:

Great story, Kevin. The 88 was a boat, wasn’t it? Sometimes, during a late-night drive (maybe around hour 4 or 5), I’d feel like I was drifting along some river, surrounded by lit-up fellow cruisers and Peter-Bilt monsters. Or it all became Star Wars-like, or (when I really needed a nap) I recalled that Carlos Castenada riff with Death riding the car far behind you, catching up fast.

Brrr.

I used to hop in the car and do 8 hours without a second thought. On strange roads, too. Late night truck stops, lonely burgs with the only gas station closing early, a familiar car passing you again and again like a loop. You start to appreciate the consistency of a Denny’s.

And through it all, the radio and tape deck providing soul-fuel and a soundtrack varying from memory-lane to Weird City (Art Bell coming in faintly from a distant AM station).

Your treks — and especially the comraderie — sound like the stuff of a life well-lived. I can tell you that — if you stay alert — those moments can happen again, in different situations and with different people. And they do happen — if you don’t get so caught up in shit that you miss them. On your own terms, too. You don’t need to be a footloose bachelor.

Good stuff.

John

there’s another easy way to get rid of your stuff. I used to go to people’s homes and help them sort out their stuff (for free), and then sell everything they didn’t needed anymore on ebay for a percentage of whatever it got on ebay.

This way you don’t have to do anything (not even drive your stuff somewhere), and still get a couple of bucks, and you help some minipreneur who’ll be happy about your business too. (Since you want to give it away anyway, you can tell him to keep the profits - sometimes I had nice chaps who told me I could keep the money and I was as happy as a dog who got a bone).

You can find an ebay trading assistant here: http://pages.ebay.com/tahub/index.html

The last couple of times I moved I had a feng shui guy come in and give me advice on how to maximize harmony in the house. He objected to my plan to store my stuff under the bed. Now now I try to throw half my stuff out every year. I actually hire someone to come in and help me winnow. (The feng shui also almost got me arrested for stealing river rocks from the local botanical garden, but that’s a different story).

On the other hand, helping people sort their stuff is a bonding activity. I went over to my girlfriends house two weekends ago and just lazed on the bed while she spent 5 hours going through her room and organizing. My job was to mutter - whenever it was at all appropriate “throw it out”. More often than not, that nudge was all she needed to dump it.

We had some excellent “quantity time”, and she got through mounds of junk relatively painlessly.

Kat

That’s such an awesome question.

Nice post

Anyway, welcome back, John!

Looking forward.

John Carlton replies:

Sorry about that, man. I’ve gotten in the habit, whenever that bell goes off inside my head telling me I just wrote something great that I don’t wanna risk losing, to right-click copy it. Takes a second. Saved many a well-crafted email that would otherwise have been lost to the ether. Once it’s safe, the copied copy can be overridden.

WordPress is a great utility, but it has its bugs. Especially when we use math on writers — not always a good combo.

Thanks for the post.

I know EXACTLY how you feel, dude!

We just got back from a 10-day road-trip with a few days of “fun” in Las Vegas sandwiched between a seminar on each end - and I had the same epiphany about “do I have too much shit at home”.

How cool would it be to minimize my “stuff”, move into a home about half the size, and really get “back to basics”?

The problem is - I like my stuff. So I’ll probably just continue my struggles for now, and instead of streamlining my life I just won’t stay gone that long again. Until next time anyway.

I did make a little eBay stack.

Hopefully it won’t still be sitting there this time next year.

Rock on,
Lee Collins