
I came across this Zen koan earlier today, and it has stuck with me. Over the last few months I have been overpowering the packrat gene I inherited from my mom and her mom, and have been jettisoning old crap with surprisingly little deliberation. My usual rationalizations for keeping stuff, “I could fix that,” “But I’ve had that for 20 years,” and “I might still wear that once in a while” seem to have lost some of their power.