Funnily enough, it occurred to me just this weekend that if I knew every single thing I owned, it would be a liberating experience. It would put tangible borders on the “stuff” that I own. It would make it a lot easier to get rid of things. It would be a minor dress rehearsal for confronting my own destiny, “well there you have it: your entire earthly possessions”. A bit like an interim last will and testament I suppose. With happy irony though I can say that the feeling it evoked in me is one of lively freedom and flexibility.
They key would be to have the items grouped:
Aftershaves, 7
Favourite t-shirts, 6
Partly used videocassettes 11
Copies of favourite album (all formats) 5
And so on. There is no reason why most of the items could not be reduced to “1 of”. And with the number sorted out, then I could take a step back and look at the actual item itself: do I even need 1 telescope? Do I even need 1 German dictionary? Etc.
With so much stuff gone, I could let my newly revitalised mind look forward to the next new thing, but of course this time I would acquire things in a much more sensible manner, only one book at a time, only one cool shirt at a time … honest …