The life-changing magic of giving it up
Donating your old identities
I’m not the neatest person, but I’ll go through Marie Kondo kicks now and then.
She says something around how books can be a heavy reminder who you think you should be, who you keep pressuring yourself to become. Or worse, who you keep pressuring yourself to continue being.
Despite that, I’ve kept my school textbooks for years, both because I told myself I’d brush up on old subjects AND because they projected a serious, “deep” identity.
I’ve now put the bulk of those in a donation box. I didn’t plan it—it just felt right in the moment.
It’s a time of upheaval, both personally and societally. Those are never easy, but (maybe thanks to Marie) this time I’ve embraced shedding old identities and expectations—of myself, of society—that have been long dusty on my shelf. In the case of books, I like to think of not just shedding the identities but freeing them up for someone else to embody when they bump into them at the used book store.
In transitions there’s both grieving what you quit and celebrating the space it opens. There’s wistfulness for the paths not taken and renewed energy from locking into the path that’s here today.
It doesn’t makes the uncertainty less scary, but it does make it more exhilarating.
Thank you for posting. In my experience, it's both scary and thrilling to let go of things, especially ones that once had significant value. And books—well, that's the whole thing, isn't it? I left academia but it took me ten years to finally get rid of my texts and law books. In the end, I told myself they were a) out of date and/or b) replaceable. That helped.
Love this reflection, L. Vago. During Covid, I "Marie Kondo'd" my house and office. In total, I donated 43 boxes of books. Of them, I regretted only 5 books, so I bought them again. After 22 years, I too gave up all my old college notes and papers. At times, I regret that action. But I think it was an important act to let go of the intellectual anchor of college -- a beautiful anchor, but a weight in some sense nonetheless. I thought about a paper about Elie Weisel's Night, on which my professor wrote, "One of the most original and insightful essays about this book I have ever read. You are a philosopher, Russell!" Maybe I wish I still had that essay, but perhaps even more, I wonder what thoughts I'd have about Night now -- and what I would write about it nearly 3 decades later.