I thought about his words, after I got laid off. As a researcher in the telecom industry, it does seem like I have been moving around a bit! For me, moving tends to be back-breaking work, since I can't afford to hire a moving company. I go to my storage area, and carry tens of heavy boxes to the UPS depot. Maybe I should hire a mover- the cost might end up being about the same. When I move, everything goes into the brown cardboard boxes, that cost me $3.00 from John's Moving Company. Then it's onto the next hot startup company.
Every time I move, the number of boxes increases. Some boxes, like essential books, I tend to open immediately when I arrive at my destination. But how about the inevitable boxes labelled "Miscellaneous". These boxes contain things that I wouldn't want to throw away. For example, when I lived in Oregon, I got a beautiful color map showing all the biking routes around Portland! Or, during my work, I had compiled a set of interesting articles in a folder. And these boxes get shuttled to the garage, because there is never any time to open them. To be honest, it is not strictly a question of time, because I must admit that I have had a day free on a weekend now and then. Sometimes I head out to the garage to sort through them. But then I open them to find clutter. Of course, I cannot bear to throw anything inside away! So I neatly seal them up again.
Recently, I was fortunate enough to move into my parent's home. They really have the box problem. In fact, they have 2 garages in back that are packed to the ceiling with boxes. They finally decided to hire someone, just to help them stack the boxes so that they wouldn't fall and injure someone. To be fair to my parents, many people have deposited their boxes in my parents garage. My grandparents, my aunt, my brother, and me have all carefully piled our boxes in my parents garage. It reminds me of the federal government nuclear waste repository, in Yucca Mountain, Nevada. There, the government is planning to spend billions of dollars to store nuclear material, which they don't really want to throw away. But they don't really need to have it around, either. So they want to pack it all up and put it in the world's biggest garage. I understand exactly how they feel!
My girlfriend, Val, is much more organized than I am. If you ask her for a copy of her fifth grade report card, she can go to her files and pull it out within 5 minutes. It's amazing! All of Val's boxes contain well-organized materials, so her boxes are actually useful. Perhaps when I marry her, I will attain that level of organization.
Because of her splendid boxes, Val seems incapable of understanding my box dilemna. For example, she didn't understand my reaction when she decided that we had to store her sister's StairMaster in my parent's garage. "There's plenty of room," she explained. Yes, that's exactly the problem, there is always plenty of room in the garage. It just gets packed denser and denser, and finally collapses like a black hole. Nothing ever goes out, it only goes in. As another example, when I decided to move from California to North Carolina, Val insisted that I had to bring my boxes. To me, it was a puzzling request. Why would I want to lug my boxes across country, when I could leave them at my parents? But to Val, it made perfect sense. In her view, my boxes and me were inseparable. But in my view, perhaps I secretly yearn to escape my boxes. Sometimes I wish to fly like an eagle, get in my car, and just drive to Colorado, or South Dakota. But this would be impossible. I am pinned down by my boxes, I am their slave.
One bright spot is the increasing use of computers. Most of my important possessions these days are intellectual property. The books and magazines that I read are really important to my work. These days, most of the technical magazines can be found on the web. I also write stories, and documents, and take pictures. These can all be put on my hard drive. Today, a hard drive with 40 Gigabytes of space can be purchasd for under $100! These 40Gb are enough to store all of my pictures and files for all time! Instead of lugging around all of these boxes, I will be able to put my life in a little drive that I can carry in my pocket. It's wonderful, although slightly disconcerting. One of my scientific collegues recently decided to throw out all of his books and papers, and revert to a completely computerized office. Is he happier? I'm not sure. I can't say that he's gotten much done since his revolutionary move. Maybe he should have held on to just a couple of books.
For now, my collection of boxes grows slowly. They are all neatly taped and they are so perfect. Maybe it is this perfection that appeals to me. It's the idea that I can take my messy life, and find order by putting it all into a rectangular brown cardboard box.
My box collection has led me to my goal, to become President of the United States. Then, after my term ends, a team of crack historians will carefully comb through my boxes, and display all the material tastefully in my Presidential Library. Probably each item will have a little placard underneath!
Otherwise, I will be left with more and more boxes. I had a friend in graduate school who possessed nothing more than blue jeans and a pack of cigarettes. Perhaps he had it right. My problem is not that I am a materialist, seeking material goods. It's that the material tends to follow me, and fill up my boxes.