The future....

I am sitting at my desk attempting to organize. Get rid of some of the paper. The office in general is a bit disheveled right now too. I dragged up a container full of computer & electronics gear to parse through and rid myself of. I'm making progress, albeit slowly. I wrote a check for an outstanding bill. Tossed the receipt in the 'to be filed' pile that's growing. I walked over to the shelf to grab an envelope and looked up at the various items; graded homework papers from Zoe, a globe, phonebooks, cd's, notebooks, books....It looks overwhelming, the accumulation. Not just here, it's invasive in our society. A society of collectors, and to what end? It made me stop and think: What defines a culture?

When artifacts from the 20th century are uncovered, what will future generations think? How will they evaluate us? What will they write about our fascination with accumulation? It's a subject I contemplate regularly now. It has it's positive aspects as it has helped me motivate to cleanse my life of so much minutia. It's tough though. It still comes in and I find myself always evaluating & re-evaluating, "How does keeping this item help me?" or, "What will this mean to me in x years?" I think a great deal of our clinginess to objects of little or no value is simply nostalgia. It reminds us of a time or an event we want to remember. A birth, death, graduation or a general period in ones life. "Oh, that box is stuff from my college years." It's ok to keep something, but where should we draw the line?

I have a vice. It's record collecting. I kid myself that I only get quality items but the reality is, there is no quality control. I take what I can get. Who am I to turn down a free offer of records? I take everything I can get my hands on. I enjoy the covers, the occasional discovery of a treasure. I become animated, thrilled really, when I open something in mint condition. Right now I am looking at a Bob Newheart record, it's got to be 40 years old. It is in great shape. I soak it in. I'll listen to it and revel in the comedy of the time. It's much more intellectual than today. Believe me, I love a good joke with any and all of the 7 dirty words (coined by George Carlin, possibly the most astute comedian ever and certainly my favorite) but I do love the snap, crackle and pop when I play these recordings and it puts me into another mental sphere. One where work and stress seem to melt away....Will future generations understand that, or will they look at my piles of dungy disorder with disdain instead?

I need to know more about how we look at the past, to determine how the future will look at us. I know I will be gone someday and, what will be left to determine my legacy? I don't know if it should be a dusty pile of vinyl. I sure as heck know it shouldn't be piles of papers and computer parts and .....shit. Of that, I am confident. So all I can do is my best to trim the fat, peel away the layers and remember to focus on what's important in life. As for the future, well I'll just leave that to my grandma and a little ditty she used to love to sing. It began, Que Sera Sera....

By the way, I told you at the beginning this wasn't going to be all about Duke, and I meant it.