The Wisdom of Youth
The other day, I was telling my 12-year-old daughter just how tough it is for me to let go of material things.
This may have been while I was saving a stack of accordion lesson books from a pile of garbage along a busy street. It may have been when I was culling perfectly good books from a pile placed on somebody's lawn. Or it may just have been during one of our frequent conversations about me rescuing a beat-up banjo at a flea market... Something like that.
Anyway, I confessed that despite my quasi-Buddhist pretensions, I just have a heck of a time in situations like that, letting go. I know attachment is the cause of all suffering... but I remain attached to material things. Especially of things that seem somehow noble, and yet forgotten and forlorn. Like what other people call junk.
My daughter's response: "But Dad! Material things aren't just material things if you're attached to them."
The kid's got a point. When you love something, or even just recognize its worth, you somehow transform it, right? Simply taking a picture of a broken-down brick wall can give it a special new beauty. And pocketing a pretty rock - isn't that imbuing it with a little soul? Let alone unraveling the story from a long-lost book, or coaxing a little tune from a sad old banjo. Aren't these spiritual acts? They must be.
Looked at this way, my basement, my garden shed, my den closet, my desk drawers, my bookshelves, my photo albums, my hard drive... my home and my life full of odds and sods, heirlooms and hand-me-downs, antiques and projects and precious things of all kinds... heck, it's like some kind of shrine! Rather reassuring, really. Thanks, kid.
I just have one question: why does she keep harassing me to clean the place up?
This may have been while I was saving a stack of accordion lesson books from a pile of garbage along a busy street. It may have been when I was culling perfectly good books from a pile placed on somebody's lawn. Or it may just have been during one of our frequent conversations about me rescuing a beat-up banjo at a flea market... Something like that.
Anyway, I confessed that despite my quasi-Buddhist pretensions, I just have a heck of a time in situations like that, letting go. I know attachment is the cause of all suffering... but I remain attached to material things. Especially of things that seem somehow noble, and yet forgotten and forlorn. Like what other people call junk.
My daughter's response: "But Dad! Material things aren't just material things if you're attached to them."
The kid's got a point. When you love something, or even just recognize its worth, you somehow transform it, right? Simply taking a picture of a broken-down brick wall can give it a special new beauty. And pocketing a pretty rock - isn't that imbuing it with a little soul? Let alone unraveling the story from a long-lost book, or coaxing a little tune from a sad old banjo. Aren't these spiritual acts? They must be.
Looked at this way, my basement, my garden shed, my den closet, my desk drawers, my bookshelves, my photo albums, my hard drive... my home and my life full of odds and sods, heirlooms and hand-me-downs, antiques and projects and precious things of all kinds... heck, it's like some kind of shrine! Rather reassuring, really. Thanks, kid.
I just have one question: why does she keep harassing me to clean the place up?
posted by David Newland at 24.9.08
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