kothari.ca

during the next fortnight or so, i will be celebrating discardia, a floating holiday which “takes place in the time between the Solstices & Equinoxes and their following new moons” — so between june 21st (summer solstice) and july 14th (new moon) i will be celebrating… nothing!

Discardia is celebrated by getting rid of stuff and ideas you no longer need. It’s about letting go, abdicating from obligation and guilt, being true to the self you are now. Discardia is the time to get rid of things that no longer add value to your life, shed bad habits, let go of emotional baggage and generally lighten your load. — MetaGrrrl

this takes my annual summer decluttering catharsis a step further, moving beyond the material into the spiritual, emotional and virtual.

see more discarded stuff on Flickr
set discardia goals on 43 Things

after all the decluttering, reorganizing, and rearranging, the great toilet flood of 2006 obliterated my efforts.

i am officially homeless and without my stuff. my insurance company arranged to have all my belongings moved out while my apartment gets recarpeted. no one seems to know when that will be.

see more of my toilet mal-fotos on flickr

i am now living in the sunny “holiday inn express” resort across the mall… on the bright side, i do have a king-size bed and close proximity to product at shopper’s drug mart!

i spent the weekend shredding, recycling, donating, garbaging and gifting a bunch of my stuff, and was reminded of George Carlin’s A Place For My Stuff (see also Stuff; according to George Carlin).

here are the three strangest things i have held onto over the years and finally discarded this weekend:

1. detachable beaded fringe from a $50 pair of jean shorts i had purchased and had tried to return, but apparently stores don’t take back worn merchandise (what can i say, i was in high school)…
2. automatic shift thingy i had broken off of a pick-up truck (accidentally!) while driving around the random coal mine i worked at…
3. Canon StarWriter 80 (not really strange, but an entirely useless old-school word processor) — there are people trying to sell theirs on ebay; mine is on its way to an ecostation…

for a truly cathartic experience, “when in doubt, throw it out!”
and as one of the “web guys” once said… YAGNI!
you ain’t gonna need it!