Catch and Release
I've never fished, but I have watched with some attention to the Saturday afternoon shows during which people go to great effort and investment of time, money, and inconvenience to catch a fish and then to release it.
Now, don't get me wrong: I understand that the passion some people feel for this fish-capturing process is doubtless as great as what I experience at a book fair or yarn sale, and also that I'm a chicken-hearted hypocrite to order the planked salmon when, looking the fish straight in the eye, I personally could no more execute said fish than do the tango with it. It's just that the process of catching and releasing things has gotten a bright light shone upon it recently for me.
You may know that we recently had our first garage sale (see Coach's Notes: Does That Vacuum Work? ), and yet we are still in the process of emptying out the stored miscellanea of several generations of my family. Paint rags and heirloom watches, broken flashlights and oak furniture, everything was packed together willy nilly with no pattern of discernment. All kinds of objects were shoved together with such ferocity that even prying open doors and extracting a single object is heavy and dangerous labor. The big and small, the precious and the useless, everything had been packed down into a solidified mass of incomprehensibility and uselessness.
Now here's the critical point that has really come home to the two of us: the purpose and pleasure for which all these things were initially gotten had long since been lost and destroyed. Many were even deliberately put into circumstances in which they would (note the passive) "get damaged." The sad truth is that all that was left of them was the holding onto them itself (regardless of the consequences).
I've tried to convey the overwhelming nature of this situation repeatedly to a variety of people who've asked about it, but I can never quite get them to see the horror of it. What I've begun to realize is that this is not a reality that most of us want to look square in the eye any more than I want to get to know that salmon too well. Confronting our possessions and possessiveness confronts our own mortality. It makes us ask terribly hard questions about what we are spending our time, spending our cash, and spending our mortality to obtain and retain. It makes us look at what we own and what owns us. When you know that someday everything you have will be examined outside of our own personal frame of reference, and that you won't be there to rationalize around it, then you look at it differently yourself.
This way of seeing is very disorienting, but it's also full of potential for personal growth. At our garage sale, we met a wonderful woman of about our age who bought a single china Christmas tree from us. She had recently moved to Texas from out of state and had, before leaving her previous home, liquidated almost everything she owned. This was not a loss she suffered but a "liberation" (her word) she chose. This single decorative object was to be "her Christmas." She considered it carefully for a long time and only brought it into her world once she had achieved complete confidence that this was the correct decision. She was content with her catch, just as she remained exhilarated by her release of most of the rest of the years' accumulation.
What this lady realized was that the possessions she previously had owned had grown to own her, controlling where and how she lived. Without them she was free to make new decisions that fit who she now is. This stood in stark contrast for us to the situation we are putting to rights - one in which when the house became full then a garage was built, and when the garage became full a storage building was built, and when that was filled to capacity then another was storage building was built, and then even another garage. (No, I'm truly not making that up. That's how far the process of indecision can go!)
There's another inspirational woman in our sphere of acquaintance who also "gets it" and who has decided that a home she owned has begun to own her. Being the brave and insightful person that she is, she's decided to move ahead to a change of residence that actually fits who she's come to feel she is. The earlier meaning of the house no longer resonates for her, so she's picking "a new Christmas" so to speak.
Don't deceive yourself that this will be easy, regardless of how many how-to experts tell you to just suck up your courage and be decisive. It was simple to toss out the dried up paint cans, but I'll admit to you it was a bit of a wrench to throw out my own baby teeth.
So even though I'm sure I put a lot of effort into getting those tiny teeth into position in the first place, after three or four passes in which I chickened out finally I did dispose of them. After all, I haven't used them in a very long time, and I'm hoping that whatever measure of growth I gained from that personal release will help me to make other releases I will doubtless face in the future.
(By the way, expect more on this topic. Wherever we go, we keep hearing from others about it. The pain and process of release seems to be abroad in the world right now, so we'll revisit it whenever we have more to offer. We also welcome your stories if you wish to share them with us.)
Now, don't get me wrong: I understand that the passion some people feel for this fish-capturing process is doubtless as great as what I experience at a book fair or yarn sale, and also that I'm a chicken-hearted hypocrite to order the planked salmon when, looking the fish straight in the eye, I personally could no more execute said fish than do the tango with it. It's just that the process of catching and releasing things has gotten a bright light shone upon it recently for me.
You may know that we recently had our first garage sale (see Coach's Notes: Does That Vacuum Work? ), and yet we are still in the process of emptying out the stored miscellanea of several generations of my family. Paint rags and heirloom watches, broken flashlights and oak furniture, everything was packed together willy nilly with no pattern of discernment. All kinds of objects were shoved together with such ferocity that even prying open doors and extracting a single object is heavy and dangerous labor. The big and small, the precious and the useless, everything had been packed down into a solidified mass of incomprehensibility and uselessness.
Now here's the critical point that has really come home to the two of us: the purpose and pleasure for which all these things were initially gotten had long since been lost and destroyed. Many were even deliberately put into circumstances in which they would (note the passive) "get damaged." The sad truth is that all that was left of them was the holding onto them itself (regardless of the consequences).
I've tried to convey the overwhelming nature of this situation repeatedly to a variety of people who've asked about it, but I can never quite get them to see the horror of it. What I've begun to realize is that this is not a reality that most of us want to look square in the eye any more than I want to get to know that salmon too well. Confronting our possessions and possessiveness confronts our own mortality. It makes us ask terribly hard questions about what we are spending our time, spending our cash, and spending our mortality to obtain and retain. It makes us look at what we own and what owns us. When you know that someday everything you have will be examined outside of our own personal frame of reference, and that you won't be there to rationalize around it, then you look at it differently yourself.
This way of seeing is very disorienting, but it's also full of potential for personal growth. At our garage sale, we met a wonderful woman of about our age who bought a single china Christmas tree from us. She had recently moved to Texas from out of state and had, before leaving her previous home, liquidated almost everything she owned. This was not a loss she suffered but a "liberation" (her word) she chose. This single decorative object was to be "her Christmas." She considered it carefully for a long time and only brought it into her world once she had achieved complete confidence that this was the correct decision. She was content with her catch, just as she remained exhilarated by her release of most of the rest of the years' accumulation.
What this lady realized was that the possessions she previously had owned had grown to own her, controlling where and how she lived. Without them she was free to make new decisions that fit who she now is. This stood in stark contrast for us to the situation we are putting to rights - one in which when the house became full then a garage was built, and when the garage became full a storage building was built, and when that was filled to capacity then another was storage building was built, and then even another garage. (No, I'm truly not making that up. That's how far the process of indecision can go!)
There's another inspirational woman in our sphere of acquaintance who also "gets it" and who has decided that a home she owned has begun to own her. Being the brave and insightful person that she is, she's decided to move ahead to a change of residence that actually fits who she's come to feel she is. The earlier meaning of the house no longer resonates for her, so she's picking "a new Christmas" so to speak.
Don't deceive yourself that this will be easy, regardless of how many how-to experts tell you to just suck up your courage and be decisive. It was simple to toss out the dried up paint cans, but I'll admit to you it was a bit of a wrench to throw out my own baby teeth.
So even though I'm sure I put a lot of effort into getting those tiny teeth into position in the first place, after three or four passes in which I chickened out finally I did dispose of them. After all, I haven't used them in a very long time, and I'm hoping that whatever measure of growth I gained from that personal release will help me to make other releases I will doubtless face in the future.
(By the way, expect more on this topic. Wherever we go, we keep hearing from others about it. The pain and process of release seems to be abroad in the world right now, so we'll revisit it whenever we have more to offer. We also welcome your stories if you wish to share them with us.)
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