“I don't have to look too far or too long awhile To make a lengthy list of all that I enjoy It's an accumulating trinket and a treasure pile Where moth and rust, thieves and such will soon enough destroy”
-Nichole Nordeman, Legacy
It’s a common question: what would you take with you if your house was burning? A common question with a variety of answers, usually spurred by some sort of emotional attachment: “I’d take my grandmothers shawl,” “or my wedding dress,” “my baseball collection...”
But for me, and for little or no sentimental reasons, it would be my computer.
My computer holds a lot of my class work, personal journals, and lots of pictures, not to mention the hardware itself cost me nearly four grand. Everything else in my life is replaceable, everything else can burn.
The practicality of my answer lends no room for an interesting story, however it’s not that I don’t have interesting or valuable items in my room, because I do. Throughout my travels and experiences I am a collector of silly sentimental things. I have shoeboxes full of ticket stubs, handwritten notes, rocks and dirt even. I have a Murano glass bowl from Italy, a Pashmina shawl from India, and a blue license plate from Panama, all of which I consider valuable and irreplaceable, but they are still just things.
So please excuse me for a moment while I climb onto my soapbox. I am annoyed by people who fuss when someone breaks something apparently considered valuable to them. It can be as worthless as an old pencil, or as valuable as an ancient artifact, and I still don’t think it’s worth fussing about.
I don’t mean to say that it’s not worth collecting or taking an interest in old things, or anything. What I am saying, and from what I’ve observed and even struggled with personally, is that it’s not worth letting our things become more important than our people.
The older lady I lived with passed away a month ago, and now every Sunday her family comes over to sort through her things. So many things! Little things, papers things, boxes, magazines, calendars, rolls of wrapping paper that while she was alive she could not let go of. Perhaps she believed that if those things were given away, thrown away, or even stolen, that a piece of herself would be gone with it? But now she is gone, and all these things sit in the rain on the curb waiting for a stranger to take them away. Many of these things aren’t even meaningful to the people who loved her most. And that’s just it: they loved her, not her stuff, and to them with or without it she was still their mother, or grandmother, or friend.
I suppose one of the reasons I’ve turned into a “stuff hater” is because of my own inability to keep track of my things. Unfortunately my whole life I’ve been losing pairs of glasses, breaking cameras, and I even had computer stolen. It’s a frustrating character trait to have, and its certainly contributed to my lack of attachment to things. But the big lesson I’ve learned each time is how life still goes on with out that stuff.
I’m reminded every time that my real treasures are not in this world, and the only thing I’ll be taking to Heaven are my friends. But if I could strike a deal with God, I think I’d ask Him to bring my computer.
My computer holds a lot of my class work, personal journals, and lots of pictures, not to mention the hardware itself cost me nearly four grand. Everything else in my life is replaceable, everything else can burn.
The practicality of my answer lends no room for an interesting story, however it’s not that I don’t have interesting or valuable items in my room, because I do. Throughout my travels and experiences I am a collector of silly sentimental things. I have shoeboxes full of ticket stubs, handwritten notes, rocks and dirt even. I have a Murano glass bowl from Italy, a Pashmina shawl from India, and a blue license plate from Panama, all of which I consider valuable and irreplaceable, but they are still just things.
So please excuse me for a moment while I climb onto my soapbox. I am annoyed by people who fuss when someone breaks something apparently considered valuable to them. It can be as worthless as an old pencil, or as valuable as an ancient artifact, and I still don’t think it’s worth fussing about.
I don’t mean to say that it’s not worth collecting or taking an interest in old things, or anything. What I am saying, and from what I’ve observed and even struggled with personally, is that it’s not worth letting our things become more important than our people.
The older lady I lived with passed away a month ago, and now every Sunday her family comes over to sort through her things. So many things! Little things, papers things, boxes, magazines, calendars, rolls of wrapping paper that while she was alive she could not let go of. Perhaps she believed that if those things were given away, thrown away, or even stolen, that a piece of herself would be gone with it? But now she is gone, and all these things sit in the rain on the curb waiting for a stranger to take them away. Many of these things aren’t even meaningful to the people who loved her most. And that’s just it: they loved her, not her stuff, and to them with or without it she was still their mother, or grandmother, or friend.
I suppose one of the reasons I’ve turned into a “stuff hater” is because of my own inability to keep track of my things. Unfortunately my whole life I’ve been losing pairs of glasses, breaking cameras, and I even had computer stolen. It’s a frustrating character trait to have, and its certainly contributed to my lack of attachment to things. But the big lesson I’ve learned each time is how life still goes on with out that stuff.
I’m reminded every time that my real treasures are not in this world, and the only thing I’ll be taking to Heaven are my friends. But if I could strike a deal with God, I think I’d ask Him to bring my computer.
