The House Is Burning

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    What are you willing to leave behind? What can you live without? What can you NOT live without? If the house is burning what do you take with you? Can it fit in a suitcase? A car? or do you still need a moving truck?
    Having not too long ago left a 1,400sq ft house with a garage and a basement for a 250sq ft studio apartment along with keeping the same expenses with half the income really brings these questions to the front. What can I live without? What CAN'T I live without? My stable of bicycles I've spent the last several years competing in about 40 or more races per year and spending untold amounts of cash on repairs and upgrades? My guitars and music equipment I've dragged around the last 25 years annoying neighbors and club goers with songs that basically boil down to screaming at ex-girlfriends in public? My car? Books, clothes.....
    My former life left me with a lot of baggage and a lot of debts. Some material, some emotional and spiritual. So the house is on fire and I'm deciding what to take and what to let burn. Some material, some emotional and spiritual. 
    Being of alcoholic and junkie mind, I have the tendency to hit bottom before getting it together. As someone practicing sobriety, hitting bottom could have a lot of different options. The one thing I did learn from the "crazy to sober" process was that I had to let go of the old in order to make room for the new. I look around my 250sq ft and a big part of it is "the old."Yeah, so what stays and what goes? How many boxes of photographs does one need when they're no longer in the picture?
    There's that point when moving out of an apartment when all that's left is a bed and a stash of clothes and you look around and think, "Yeah, this is nice." Why can't it always be like that? Nothing to worry about, clean, repair then throw away. Like a yoga studio or a meditation space.Why can't my mind be like that? Why is the desk that's supposed to be there to create just become a "catch-all" for bills and paperwork? Fuck it. leave it in the fire. Pour some gas on it even.
    There was a quote I read awhile back, 'he who dies with the least toys wins because the more you know, the less you need.'-Yvon Chouinard
    This made a huge impact on me. I think about the things that I've spent so many years being attached to that I thought were leading me to freedom and realize how much they really imprisoned me. After awhile, creating music and being a musician really had very little to do with each other and more about insecurity and ego. Racing bicycles became an "arms race" to keep up with the most current gear and what was originally, for me, a really amazing, supportive community, started to feel like a cross between golf and a tailgate party. Not at all why I went to these activities and lifestyles but like anything else, I guess, if you're not paying attention you can get off path.
    I look around at this stuff and all I see is either anchors that keep me down or tools to help me along. The list of "things to save" has changed and it's getting shorter. Learning more and needing less.






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