Paper Purge

I have a sickness. I have this uncanny love of paper. It nears obsession. I just have a really hard time letting go of paper. When it's unused it has so much potential. I want so much to use every single square inch of that paper. I want to fulfill the paper's desire to be useful. (I imagine that that's what would make paper happy if paper had feelings.) Maybe it's a kind of vicarious satisfaction. I know I want to be useful to my utmost extent, and I wish God would make me feel as useful as I think I'm making paper "feel." I dunno how to really explain it.

So when paper still has the potential to be useful - a blank side, an interesting graphic, etc. - I can't let it go. It's crazy, I know. An paper that holds specific information becomes like a keepsake, and everyone knows a keepsake is meant to be kept. I swear, I have every single piece of school work since I started school. It's absolutely ridiculous.

I've been feeling recently that really all that paper is a physical manifestation of emotional baggage. It's as if I can't move on with my life because the stuff from my past is weighing me down, literally. And so I've decided to really organize all that paper. It's a daunting task. I don't know when or if I'll finish. I'm hoping that by performing this paper purge I can feel a little less tied down. Of course, it is utterly time consuming. I don't think I'll have the time to think about anything else besides ridding myself of irrational attachments and unnecessary stuff.

I'm beginning to find more and more truth in Goethe's quote, "We are the slaves of the objects around us."