I was always fascinated by the part in Gulliver's Travels where the Lilliputians managed to immobilize someone many times bigger than themselves by a multitude of individual ropes. Don't know if that's really in the book or not, maybe I saw it on TV once upon a time. A powerful image, this brawny guy totally bound to the ground with a bunch of tiny people putting the final touches on ropes around his forehead, his arms, his chest....the startled, frightened look in his eyes as he realizes.....he simply can't move.
The thing that struck me most was that it wasn't the force of any one rope, but the accumulation of many, many individual tethers that overpowered him.
OK, you may ask, where in the world am I going with this? I am feeling that way about my stuff. I have a darling 1929 bungalow in a great neighborhood in hip Austin. I have some very nice antiques, many many books, and the accumulation of decades of gifts, knick knacks, a bazillion papers/articles/reading material about organizational development, 5 sets of dishes.....my house and my neighborhood are so comfortable. But still, so much stuff.
Lately, I feel smothered and bound down by my stuff. I sense the invisible force of a thousand individual things that are weighing me down. The thing is I haven't been buying much stuff in the last few years, with the exception of books which are a very big weakness with me. Most of my stuff is from years past. But that's just it....I feel it is tying me to the past when my spirit is yearning to fly light and free in a new direction.
Stay tuned for Part II....
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