on hoarding and downsizing

i  guess i am one of  the hoarders and collectors:ive got it bad although not that bad.

mm.ill read that later-an item in the post-set it aside.later,it finds itself in  apile and stored to be revisited,some time,never.

then theres the paper i store more intentionally-stuff ive written,others have written,something ive been involved in,the stuff of memories and some of its is stuff no-one would ever deny is important.then theres photographs.and magazines,journals and books,including duplicates and multiple copies.and recorded music and other material on vinyl,tape,compact discs.

so what do i do or not do?

there is what i suppose a perfectly legitimate,modern but i think ugly,clunky and jargon-ese style word:downsizing.

for me in this context that has to mean getting rid of,making less,making space.

then comes the difficulty.i think those of us who do hoard make many excuses to ourselves and others,and we procrastinate and we are slow to do anything about it.normally i would not make this kind of generalisation and would instead talk only about myself but at the same time,ive spoken to other hoarders recently,who intentionally or otherwise let slip some of the details of their own habits.one of the half legitimate issues that comes up is about not wasting things,recycling and re-use.....

and then there are the people who do not recognise that they too are hoarders or they cannot admit it to themselves.some are"in denial".another feature i recognise from some buddhist thinking,psychology and social work thery-that we tend to see in others and to project onto them what is actually inside ourselves. one of the primary people in this category for me,has not tidy piles of approximately recognisable material like books but smaller accumulations everywhere,which might include-and here is a family joke-the occassional bacon bookmark somewhere.no,its not that bad,though i did once find a piece of very dried shrivelled bacon as a bookmark in a library book.given the current situation in this community i live in-i will say it was from a brent library i dont look in those piles.of others material but when i have occassion to move them,it is highly likely that a table place mat or a torn envelope with a shopping list written on it will fall out.

this person,is the main person"on my case"who is always eager to throw out MY books or things she deems i should not have but the pile with the place mat never even gets sorted.maybe we should trade off"ill sort mine,if you sort yours"which might be helpful,although its childish stuff really.

all said and done-i am trying to downsize,and i will try to pass on and sometimes sell on some of the items.whilst i dont want to add to the clutter inother peoples homes,it does make it marginally easier if some things"go to good home"where they are needed or used.

so i thought i might keep a list somewhere on here of things id like to pass on.let me know if you are interested in anything.....watch this space.