Personal Correspondence

Well, well, well, it’s been quite a while. Again.

I’ve become rather consistent at being inconsistant.

I couldn’t say if it’s the general busyness of life or some manifestation of my innate procrastination habits.

I’m banking on a hybrid of both.

That being said, let’s get to the meat and potatoes of this posting. (Although, they often say “one man’s meat is another man’s poison”. I promise I won’t poison anyone on purpose.)

————-

Since moving to Japan, I have found that I get the most hand written, personal correspondence from two sources:

1) Older relatives and friends of the family.

2) Friends in America (in spite of my neglect and overall terribleness at keeping in touch.)

In this post, I’m mostly going to focus on the older relatives and friends of the family.

The two main culprits in this category are my grandma and the pastor’s wife from the church that I grew up in and called subsequently called grandma.

Now, I’ve done a pretty good job keeping in touch with (biological) Grandma (and Grandpa.)

I call them at least once a month. My reasons aren’t complicated. It’s mostly because I love my Grandparents. But I have to say, a close second is excited Grandma is to talk to me. Living in Japan has become business as usual to me, but apparently still looks pretty awesome on the outside.

Don’t even get me started on the street cred that Grandma gets at her quilting guild because I live in Japan. The crazy “Japanese” fabric [made in China] that I got her last Christmas must have been very envy inducing.

I see it as a “My grandson is a DOCTOR” sort of phenomenon. Apparently, there aren’t any grandson Doctors represented in the guild. To me, that seems to be a little bit more of an accomplishment than simply living somewhere far away.

But, per usual, I have digressed.

The second Grandma, the pastor’s wife, I see very irregularly. Only once or twice in the past few years. And yet, she continues to sent me letters, with updates and encouragement.

So, this got me to thinking.

I kind of just take these letters in and appreciate that people are thinking of me. But shy of the phone calls to Grandma, I haven’t really been reciprocating. I think this is childish behavior. That sort of receptive mode that is acceptable for children, is in turn, irresponsible for adults. I think it is prudent to give in addition to receiving.

They don’t have to be full of feelings, and gooey what nots like the Grandmas letters are admittedly famous for. In this case, I think it really is the thought that counts.

Real adults, real men, send letters when they need to. Because it is important to value people in a way that they will understand and appreciate.

(and Grandma doesn’t have e-mail)

Minimalism

Well, I’m sorry.

Can I get that out of the way? I’ve neglected Zeus Thaber again.

But at least my range of neglected hobbies, anywhere from journaling to amateur photography, make for good company. (On cold nights I can still hear them screaming for attention.)

Truth be told, I’d sell them, but they are pretty laden with emotional value. The camera is about 35 years old, my Mom used it in college. What kind of monster would sell that? And the journal, it has more than a years worth of cultural transition journal entries. Plus, who buys someone else’s journal journal?

But I would argue that a camera and a book aren’t really cluttering up my life in a disruptive sort of way. There are times where a certain item is impossible to throw away. You know the excuses, “But I might use it someday”, “But it brings back such good memories”, etc etc.*

I used to be guilty of this.

I remember when these kind of thoughts started to decline. It was the first time I came to Japan, and in order to raise the money to pay for the trip. I was selling anything that wasn’t nailed down.

In the frantic, garage-sale-esqe countdown, I realized several things:

A) I didn’t play the bass guitar anymore. (I only kept it around because it made me feel cool.) **see note below
B) Pawn shops aren’t very generous.
C) Knickknacks, and anything resembling them, are terrible.
D) If someone won’t give you money for an item, and you don’t know why you still have it, said item probably isn’t worth keeping.

So, for me it came down to stuff, our complicated, co-dependent relationship with stuff.

Naturally, I wanted to see if anyone else questioned this zany relationship with stuff.

I think you’d be surprised at how gigantic the movement against stuff has become.

One of my favorite blogs on minimalism is written by a guy who, on occasion, strikes me as a crazy-ass idealist.*** But at the same time, he puts the movement into very coherent and eloquent terms, that have really spoken to me.

Here is a quote from his book.

“A minimalist eschews the mindset of more, of acquiring and consuming and shopping, of bigger is better, of the burden of stuff. A minimalist instead embraces the beauty of less, the aesthetic of spareness, a life of contentedness in what we need and what makes us truly happy.”

“A minimalist values quality, not quantity, in all forms.”

How does that not sound good?

But…there is always a downside, right?

The concept of minimalism on a personal level can be taken, commercialized, and packaged conveniently for sale.

Want to be minimalist, but still want to keep all your stuff? We can help with that, and all you have to do is follow our system and we will organize all that clutter.

Remember:
Organized clutter =/= Minimalism
I guess the point is to find what works for you. I’ve been trying to do that for a while now, and I think it would be best described as a work in progress.

 

 

 

* check out http://unclutterer.com/, they had a good article about cutting the strings on hobbies and their associated clutter

** totally cool anyway, regardless of rock instruments involved.

*** http://www.mnmlist.com/, look for the articles on planning and communal living

False Starts

I hope that whenever someone gets a tattoo they consider their decision well thought out, but my hopes are slightly dashed when I see things like this.

Don’t be alarmed, I can assure you, these colors don’t bleed.

(Beyond the initial bleeding, of course, and the simulated bleeding, but I hear that’s normal.)

Your future 90 year old body is calling from the moon, and it wants to remind you that tattoos are permanent.

—

Have you ever been merrily typing along, while looking at something else, and then realized that your hands had slipped to the left and you just wrote a whole bunch of gibberish?

—

I got turtles, and got rid of turtles, all in the span of three weeks.

I’m going to go out on a limb, and say that I’m not a turtle person.

As a side note, pets should typically never be impulse purchases. And I quote, “Oh, turtles would be fun!”

—————–

I was brainstorming this week and decided that none of these ideas really deserved to become a full post.

Tattoos, keyboard finger placement, turtles?

Diagnosis: Slightly Boooooring.

And the sun rises on Zeus Thaber…

Hello Interwebs.

The migration might be incomplete from the old bloog*, but I’d say that the set up for Zeus Thaber is progressing pretty well.

(I’ll give a complete rundown on the origin of the awesome name choice later)

Anywho, a few notes:

I am still in Los Angeles, for the usual round of  grad school. (and delicious, delicious mexican food)
I will return to Japan on August 1st.

And finally,

I will write all about my exotic trip to the Northern Americas. (at a later date)

Until then, wish me luck.

(*Old English spelling of blog, pronounced blew-guh)