the unanticipated costs of being zen

For quite a few posts I have been describing (and indirectly extolling) my attempts of reducing material possessions. From tearing up personal photographs to discarding CDs, I thought I was able to not let it affect me but rather be cold, clinical and pragmatic about it. After all I keep telling myself that I need to adopt a more zen-like existence; after all they are just things. That was what I kept telling myself.

But days after doing so, I do feel quite empty and down. Although I couldn’t really work out what exactly that caused it, I simply blamed it on the major upheavals of the recent weeks. But a colleague stopped me yesterday and commented that I must feel drained, even a little bit, in throwing all these things out. And it hit me that I do. Subconsciously I have destroyed a significant number of things that act as placeholders for various memories (that may be happy or not so) that have marked the passage of my life. While I can look at these objects to be simply material goods, they, I have come to realise are also physical reminders of who I am and where I have been been.

While it is too late to mourn the loss and I certainly don’t regret what I did, it is still a revelation and something I learnt about the ‘materiality of memories’. One sacrifices a lot more than just the cost of the goods thrown out. In reaching for a state of zen, one is required not only to give up these memories but perhaps develop a much more non-attached stance towards life and living. Such is the cost of becoming more zen.

tearing up memories

I did the most bizarre thing today. I went through my entire physical photo collection, stored in a big box and tore up approximately 97% of them. I had pictures from my childhood right up until I stopped taking analogue pictures, probably around 5 years ago.

I noticed that my collection of photos were themed and bunched around significant holidays and trips, or events. Some were from a period when I was particularly enamoured with taking pictures, celebrating my life. Of course a lot of those holidays and events were accompanied by a significant other who are now either a good friend or who has vanished from my radar for whatever reason. Yet I tore up the photos, one after another, only to give up counting after tearing the 420th photo.

Oh I kept some. But only the photo(s) I felt that was most representative of that particular trip, holiday, period or event. Ones I that felt that would suffice as a placeholder for the memories associated with it. The act of tearing up those glossy, slippery 4R prints was quite surreal. Perhaps it is not something we think of doing. Photos are precious moments, to be cherished and stored; retrieved to regale us with those times when we think of it. I did feel that I was doing more than just clearing up the material things that weigh me down prior to this move at the end of this month. It is one thing discarding clothes I no longer wear or shoes that have not walked out of my closet for years but tearing up personal photos seem unnatural. It was as I tore up the first photo. But I braved myself and stopped myself from thinking about it.

In retrospect, as I stare at the big plastic bag full of torn up photos, I was clearing out. I was clearing out memories from my past, like erasing the excess and only saving the ones I choose to remember. An act of distillation and crystallisation.

My flatmate did exhort me and told me that I should at least digitise them first before destroying them but the thought of the effort involved – the scanning, the retrieving, the saving and then the reviewing meant that I will have to re-live those memories again. With that in mind, I persisted in tearing them up.

I guess there were a lot about my past that is bittersweet. And at this stage of my life, when I am focussed on the future, dipping into the past is not a luxury I wish to indulge in.

When I finished with the box of photos, I turned to the 4 fat photo albums that contained select memories. Again, I culled them with cold brutality, determined to not let the past weigh me down; determined that I want to create a brighter future.