Less stuff

Woke up early to a beautiful day this morning, with a bright sky and brilliant colors outside. The plan was pretty simple for today; go to Pottstown for a class on Reiki healing. I met up with Danielle and her friend Nicole, and we made it to the workshop just around 9am. The class lasted until 4:30, and was really awesome. A great topic and some really great people at the class helped make 7 May 2011 a wonderful day in my life. And now I can do reiki healing, level 1, which is pretty cool. We left just as a swifly-moving down-pour moved through the area. It followed us most of the way back to Collegeville, even with the sun shining, and produced a brilliant double-rainbow in the East. Tonight we're having a study group meeting for the German final this Monday on Emil und die Detektive. Great little book if you've never read it.

 Last week of college is approaching. The campus authorities have already set up those tents outside some of the dorms where students are encouraged to put items they aren't interested in keeping, but which others might like. I've discovered some gems in such collections the past two years. Maybe this year will prove similarly fruitful, though perhaps now that college is ending an ethic of minimalism would be more beneficial.

Having too much stuff can be a real burden. Stuff can creat clutter, take up space, and demand attention. It's made the house back home very cluttered in certain spaces, and can even make you feel kinda sad sometimes. Holidays can be terrible, because everyone is always giving each other more stuff. Even books are begining to bother me. Approximately 32 classes in college required a rediculous number of books, and now I have a whole bunch in tall stacks in room at home. Whatever is one to do with so much literature? I don't know how professors manage to keep so many books throughout their academic careers. I like reading as much as the next academic, but seriously there's such a thing as too many. We're caught in a world of clutter, and it will take much effort to uncatch ourselves.

Talking about such things reminds me of a television program from the 1970s called Kung Fu, starring David Carradine, among others. If you've never seen it, you can find every episode on Youtube. It's about a Chinese-American named Kwai-Chang Caine who joins the Shaolin monastary as a boy, and becomes a Doaist priest under the instruction of two senior monks; Master Kan and Master Po. After "graduation," he comes back to meet Master Po at a festival. While Caine and Master Po speak, they unintentionally get in the way of the Emperor's nephew's caravan. A small fight breaks out in which both Master Po and the Emperor's nephew are killed. Having killed the nephew, the monk Caine has to escape, making his way to the American West, presumably sometime around 1870. The neat thing about Caine is that, like his Bible name-sake, he wanders all about the Old West, carrying nothing but a pouch, a blanket, and some food. He meets friendly people and not so friendly people. Caine owns little, doesn't eat meat, yet is somehow always content and at peace with himself. He doesn't have a big house, a ton of stuff, regular company, or a steady job. He just goes out and lives, makes friends, and enjoys his life. Sounds kinda nice.

Something to think about as college comes to an end.
Happy Saturday :)