This weekend we set out on yet another round of cleaning and reorganizing. Over the years, Jo and I have come to appreciate organization and efficiency in our surroundings, and are trying very hard to teach that to Sam. I know a few people that seem to be born optimizers and organizers, but we don't seem to come by this naturally. However, with some dedication and good old family teamwork, we've certainly made great strides as the years have rolled on. It could be worse.

For some time now, the main part of the house has been pretty spiffy. It's the attic and the basement that seem to collect the extras, the not-nows and the I-just-can't-let-it-goes. However, a renovation plan for what is now the storage room in the basement is forcing us to shake this final albatross of messiness.

So in the process of sorting through the attic collections (and shedding somewhere around 2/3 of it!) I was forced to go through all that stuff that I had gathered over the years with the thought "this might be interesting in a few decades to look at." Sort of messages sent to my older self by that young idiot I used to be to remind me of who I was, why it was all so important. I was initially shocked to find that for some of this stuff, it was indeed 20 or 30 years later, and that it was quite interesting to go through. But ultimately, much of it went in the garbage. As discussed in the article linked above, there are many reasons to horde things. My favorite is Ray Kurzweil's plan to use all his dad's crap he hangs on to with the thought of reincarnating his dead father after the singularity. For me, it was more a matter of not wanting to let go of the past. To keep it close even though it was clogging up the present. So I kept a few things to look at again in another 20 or 30 years, threw a bunch out and feel significantly better. There's a calm to this, a peace. An attic of mostly my old crap is now down to a few storage boxes of truly interesting and important to me bits of my past: old drawings, some code, rave flyers, pictures and treasures.

Now to get to that room in the basement.....