November, 2002:
on losing, shedding and expiring - forms of detachment

In our daily lives we become attached to many things, and of course I've already admitted that for me detaching myself is the hard part. But detachment can take place by various methods. Perhaps forgetfulness is the best, though of course it's not selective enough - we're always being reminded of the things we wanted to forget, and forgetting those we tried to remember.

Losing is a wonderful way of getting detached from something. One of its main benefits is the fact that it's usually not something that we choose to do - it simply happens. And once something is lost (and we've given up our search for it) there's little more we can do about it.

I lose pens. Often. I used to enjoy having a nice (though not too expensive) pen in my pocket, but try as I might, I couldn't keep track of them. I'm rarely able to keep a pen there for more than three weeks without either loaning it to someone and then forgetting to get it back, or simply leaving it on a table, or in some other way losing contact with it. Which is what makes the pen below so special. One day, during this month, as I was writing with this particular pen, the ink ran out on me. Try as I might, I can't seem to recall the last time such a thing happened - I'm always losing my pens well before the ink runs out. The pen that replaced this one, for instance, lasted a bit more than a week before I totally misplaced it.

And what do I do with the empty pen? This time I scanned it and threw it out. Pens around the house, as opposed to those that are in my pocket, have a way of accumulating almost at the same rate at which they run out. Usually I leave a pen on my desk or in a jar with others, preparing to be upset in the not too distant future when I reach for a pen and discover that the one I've found is empty.

I suppose that I could also write that I lose my hair, but a more proper term would be that it sheds, accumulating into my brush which doesn't get cleaned often enough. Since my (ever growing) bald spot is at the back of my head, I very rarely see it (almost only in photographs) and the only real evidence I have of the fact of my shedding is what I see on the brush. Perhaps that's the reason that I leave it there for so long. Though I've been known to save items of this sort, I really don't find it particularly difficult to occasionally clean off the brush and throw the hair in the wastebasket.

Accumulating is another method by which detachment becomes possible. Yes, accumulating is simply a nicer way of say that I don't throw things out, but there's something additional that's taking place in the process. When my wallet becomes the repository for cards and slips of paper that no longer have any relevance, I'm creating a (perhaps pre-digital) database of unneeded objects. If I throw out the various cards that expire I'm simply getting rid of them. If, however, I leave them in my wallet, but don't relate to them, I've actually initiated a process of detachment - they're there, but are no longer relevant to me.