Reincarnation: From Stuff to Stuff

Some things crossing my mind the last several days... I have Corey Hart's album. Still. On vinyl. Along with a lot of other vinyl. I cannot justify why I keep these things. But it is just the tip of the iceberg. There are other things I'm hoarding: A box full of Writer's Digest magazines from the late 1980's. An assortment of metal scraps that I've collected over the past several years. Shelving. Hundreds of cd's that I never listen to (because I have iTunes and an iPod now). Christmas lights and assorted decorations. Stuff. It's what America is all about. I've got books that my parents used in college. Books that I've inherited and not read. Books that I've tried reading but never made it through. I've got magazines and old newspapers (weeklys and dailys) that I've yet to read. Or that I've partially read and kept to share with others. Or that I have no reasoning as to why I've kept. I've got a foot locker full of mostly such publications. I have trouble letting go. I want to be perfect and remember it all. I want to be nostalgic. I plan to reminisce. I guess. I've got a lot of t-shirts. A lot. I could make several blankets with them, if sewed together. Tons of photographs, not even in albums. More dress socks than I'll ever have a need for. But the greatest excess I'm sporting is not all that. It's not even my gut. It's the glut of stuff in my head, constantly swirling around my attention, bargaining for its preference. I've got so many words, concepts, songs, thoughts... boggling, it is. Downright bogging in fact. Again I'm reminded of the concept of latent inhibition-- the condition of having a collection of unimportant data lodged in one's mind. Like trivia without the game's utility. But is it this condition that provides the fertile soil from which great ideas grow strong and vibrant? Does a glut of apparent waste give birth to the dormant seed? Or does that seed exist despite the glut? Perhaps the seed is fed by the waste, but exists fully encapsulated: a beautiful flower only waiting to be fully realized. Now that spring is sprouting all around me, be it blooms or weeds, I'm once again enticed by the rebirth to organize, clean, prune, and pare. Is this a constant for all human beings? Are we all compelled to nest and regroup, rehash, and renovate as this season erupts beneath us? From the discarded, decomposing detritus of winter's fury comes life, born again. And in glorious, technicolor fanfare. Billowing euphoric blooms light up the daytime, reflecting the sun and beaming a rejuevenating energy to our brains. And right along side of the beautiful tulip blooms the nagging weed or sticker bush. It's all a part of the balance of life. Our perspective my drift and wonder, gathering inertia for its theories. And briefly we may think that there is more this or more that... but there is only the one. The One. It is all. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. As one dies, another is born. It is the way. But it still doesn't explain all the vinyl.