Found postcard in box, sometime after 2020

On the eve of Fogust 2025, I sit on my red sofa in the creative mess that is known as my studio listening to the recording of a 1999 Ron Trent cd I found in the garage earlier in the night that was marked a dollar but is selling for 178 on eBay thinking about how much I hate owning so much stuff.

Otis likes house music so sits next to me purring as I type, distracting me from thought as he walks in circles to the beat of this lost album that luckily is on streaming and I can instantly listen to with him on a still July night. I think about the fact that in the last 24 hours I sold 2 items from the garage that no longer serve me and probably never did : an old catalog/magazine from American Apparel and a Vice magazine with a Ryan McGinley cover. I had held onto both through the 2000s from one house to garage to storage unit to garage, a reminder of my culture youth that I feel little connection with anymore. I couldn’t throw the ephemera away. So I listed it on eBay, sold them both and sent them both off to collectors with postcards thank yous. Then I listed more crap. Maybe I’m being harsh. If it was truly crap, I would have recycled it but at some point these objects held value to me; value around identity, belonging, connection. But the objects were just a gateway to ideas. Holding onto them doesn’t make what’s behind them more cohesive in my mind. For so long I’ve held onto not only my stuff, but so many things from others I’ve loved. All their ephemera was comforting through grief. But then one day you awaken surrounded by everyone’s else life and you realize that’s your life.

Gazing at the cabinets of curiosities, the shelves of books gathered across a century now just reminds me that my consumption could be shallow. Ownership doesn’t bring you closer to the essence of art. It brings you in closer proximity but these are different relationships.

I’ve spent much of the past year thinking about acceptance and the burden of ownership. In a culture where I feel so much blame surrounding me, I am coming to understand my responsibility around the wider subject of voracious cultural consumption. For so long my strategy was sample it all and hold onto whatever interesting thing you will find because someday it may be valuable as an idea or an object. But I will not be anymore of any expert on any given subject just because I own x many books, magazines, records, paintings, etc. I probably have very little to say about most of those things beyond the things. Which makes me think I no longer need them. Their stories if they have any should remain in my conscience. Melodies looping in my head. Priceless intimate only for my own mental landfill.