To Acquire Possessions or to Live Free of Encumbrances?

I took the van to Santa Fe to get some new meats (tires) yesterday (245/75 16 BFGs aw yeah!) and while walking around before seeing a movie (Only the Brave, filmed mostly in Santa Fe and Los Alamos!) I ran across these murals.

It always blows my mind when things match whatever I am currently thinking about. Does everyone have that experience — kismet, serendipity, synchronicity? How does that happen? Is this stuff there all the time and we only sometimes see it? Do we, as the dude in Only the Brave says, “see things not as they are but as we are”?

Anyway I am planning to move to Denver to help my brother with a startup he is working on. This fits nicely with a desire to shed material things and acquire assets and experiences. But I struggle with finding a realistic and sane blend of getting rid of stuff, and throwing away things that I would want later — not just material things, but my current comfortable but claustrophobic existence.

The Homestead mural really speaks to my desire to travel and see new things and not be tied to a place or a house. But at the same time having a piece of the earth to call your own has a strong pull.

I really like the reframing of possessions as encumbrances. It feels really good to move towards minimalism. I’m not sure I can get to the point that all my shit fits in the van, but maybe. Is that even the right answer, or do I want a small apartment somewhere? I don’t even know.

Obligatory pic of van with new tires