Stripping Away

A couple of weeks ago I heard a voice teacher say something about “stripping away”. She was referring to getting rid of extra “things” a singer might do. No adding unnecessary color, not imitating other singers, not “fake” produced vibrato. Just getting to the real voice.  In the case of this one singer, a mezzo, it resulted in a younger, clearer sound. It was good.

Well, it reminded me of something I’ve been dealing with for several years. Stripping away things I don’t need in life. Material things. Possessions.

I’ve moved a lot in my life. Since college, I’ve lived in 20 or 30 different places. And I’ve moved a bunch of things with me. But around 7 or so years ago, I started wondering why move all that stuff. I’d started thinking I was gonna move to New York City, and didn’t want to take a lot of stuff with me. So, I started getting rid of things.

It started with books. I used to have a fair number, a bookshelf full, of books. Most I’d read before. I didn’t keep all the books I’d ever had, but I did tend to keep the ones I’d liked. It wasn’t that I expected to ever read them again, but they felt important to me. I connected in some small way to them. There were also some that I’d take off the shelf and open up from time to time: art books, reference books, things I might quote from—Shakespeare, Alice in Wonderland—whatever.

So I did a culling. That first time wasn’t easy. Some of those books I’d had since college. It wasn’t like they were a part of me, but they were sort of part of the process of my becoming an adult, my intellectual maturity. But cull I did. I ended up getting some credit at Ed McKay’s and a bit of cash. That did help the process. A while later, I did another big culling. In that second one, I got rid of even more: the art books, reference books, a lot of plays and poetry. I got even more money that time.

Also around then, I started selling my CDs. Some of that stuff I’d put on my computer, and some I hadn’t. But I decided I didn’t really need to keep carrying around that much music. If I needed a particular recording, I figured I could always find it somewhere. 

So, I still have a bunch of stuff. Probably more than I need. I’ve a few boxes in my parents’ basement, and even more boxes in the basement of this woman who I used to be friends with. That’s a little awkward, actually. She might still consider us friends, but we don’t talk anymore and haven’t interacted with each other since I moved back here, except the one time she met me at her place to let me in to get a few things from her basement. She never actually ended the friendship, or whatever, but her best friend was mad at me and won't talk to me, so... 

Maybe I’ll blog about that sometime.

Anyway...”stripping away”.

Today is “Black Friday”. Biggest shopping day of the year, lots of sales, people lining up early to get into stores, blah blah blah.

It’s the start of the big commercial Christmas push.

I fucking hate it.

The whole thing pisses me off. It’s like our culture yelling at us to not give up on the whole thing of buying shit. Buy shit! Buy shit! Lots of shit! “Don’t think about it, just think it” as a friend of mine once put it. She was talking about religion, but it’s the same thing. 

“The latest version of whatever is about to come out. Be the first to get it; don’t let your friends beat you to it; you don’t wanna be out the loop.”

Ug.

We don’t need that much stuff to be happy. We need some things: a place to live and adequate sustenance. Beyond that it’s extra, right? Sure there’s a lot of stuff that we consider “necessities”. And yes, to carry on a “normal” contemporary life, you need a phone, probably some kind of internet access—even if it’s at the library—and some way to get around where & when you need to. But there’s certainly an argument to be made that this isn’t the best or even a healthy way to live. Certainly not healthy for the planet.

I think the more important things are non-tangible. We need love, respect, security...people. Family, friends, whatever—a group, our people, a community. Otherwise you get depressed and shit. You need to feel a sense of belonging. Trust me, when you don’t have that, life sucks, no matter how much stuff you have.

Stripping away can help you figure out what’s actually important.