Road Zero: Everything You Own Has Weight

I've lived in the same house for years, and apparently I've spent a good portion of that time quietly filling it with shit.

Not intentionally.

Nobody wakes up one morning and says, "You know what I need? Seventeen Tupperware containers with nine matching lids."

It happens slowly.

You buy something because you need it (maybe you want it). Somebody gives you something. You replace something but keep the old one because it still works. You shove a box in the basement because you'll deal with it later. A drawer fills up. Then a closet. Then a room.

Years go by.

And one day you decide you want to live in a van.

Suddenly, you have a problem.

I've written before about my plan to eventually sell my house, buy a van and spend a good chunk of my life traveling around the country. I want to train at different dojos, meet martial artists, find strange places, write stories, read books and see what's around the next corner.

That's the romantic version.

The considerably less romantic version begins with me standing in my basement staring at an old iPhone, two tablets, an iMac, a Windows computer, an old MacBook and a ThinkPad wondering why I've apparently been operating an electronics museum.

Welcome to Road Zero.

Before I can get on the road, I have to get rid of a lot of the life I've accumulated while staying in one place.

I've used Marie Kondo's KonMari method before, and there's something I like about the basic philosophy of intentionally deciding what deserves to remain in your life. But I've modified the process over the years into something that works better for me.

Everything gets a destination.

Keep it. Sell it. Donate it. Recycle it. Throw it away.

That's pretty much it.

The hardest category is usually "sell."

I have musical equipment I've accumulated over the years. Some of it is worth real money. I have a motorcycle. Electronics. Tools. Things that somebody else could use and that could put some money back in my pocket.

So those get sold.

But I've also learned that there's a point where selling something becomes more trouble than it's worth. Taking twelve pictures, writing a description, posting it online, answering six messages asking "IS THIS AVAILABLE?", negotiating with somebody over eight dollars and then waiting for them to never show up isn't always the best use of an afternoon.

Sometimes you donate the damn thing and move on with your life.

I'm also not trying to become a minimalist for the sake of being a minimalist.

I'm keeping my books.

A lot of them, anyway.

One of the things I picture about life on the road is sitting somewhere beautiful with my dogs nearby and reading book after book after book. So books have a place in the life I'm trying to build.

That's becoming my test for almost everything:

Does this belong in the life I'm trying to build?

That's a much better question than "Could I possibly need this someday?"

Because you can justify keeping almost anything with someday.

Someday I might need this cable.

Someday I might wear this shirt.

Someday I might use this kitchen gadget.

Someday I might need the instruction manual for a printer I threw away in 2014.

Someday is how basements become archaeological sites.

The more I go through this process, though, the more I realize that possessions have weight beyond what they weigh on a scale.

You have to store them. Clean them. Organize them. Maintain them. Move them.

And eventually, somebody has to decide what happens to them.

That's probably why Own Less, Experience More ended up becoming part of the Te Before Jitsu Code.

I'm starting to understand it in a much more literal way.

I don't want to spend the next part of my life accumulating more things. I want to accumulate places I've been, people I've met, dojos I've trained in, books I've read, strange stories I've found and experiences I couldn't have had sitting in the same place surrounded by boxes of things I forgot I owned.

But before any of that happens, there's work to do.

Rooms to clean. Closets to empty. Electronics to wipe. Things to sell. Things to give away.

And probably several more mysterious cables I'll stare at for ten minutes before finally throwing them out.

That's Road Zero.

The road before the road.

And maybe that's the question I'll keep asking as I work my way through this house:

Do I really want to carry this into wherever I'm going next?

Or

Will it help me in this new life I'm trying to build?

I guess we'll see!