Use it or Lose it

Life forms are incredibly efficient. We constantly transform and optimise ourselves in response to our environment. Each of our biological subsystems, like our brains and muscles and cardiovascular and reproductive systems, constantly tunes itself to its environment. Use it, and it stays strong and healthy. Stop using it, and we lose it. It's our body's way of keeping what's important, and "decluttering" things that aren't used.

This same "use it or lose it" principle can be applied to our possessions, too. There are plenty of web sites out there that will step us through the process of decluttering, and most of them embrace the idea of "use it or lose it". Have something in the garage that you haven't used in a year? Get rid of it!

Living in the woods in a canvas tent has given me a slightly different perspective on this decluttering approach. Turns out that if I don't use something in a year's time or so, then I end up losing it alright...to other creatures!...that are happy to use it for me!

I have a team of helpers for this. Mice are really good. They like the soft stuff that I tuck away under my bed. And they love it when I store things in rarely-opened drawers. Moths are good workers, too. They always find those pants and shirts that I think I'll wear "someday". But for outdoor help, nothing beats black ants. They're not as particular as mice and moths since they're not strictly focused on finding soft fabrics. Instead, they're happy to just set up their homes in places that I don't get into much, like my outdoor plastic container that holds my backpacking gear.

Some of my recent encounters with "use it or lose it" have caused me to look at other English phrases in a different way, too. Old idioms that go back to when we all lived a bit closer to nature. Like "pitch it out", which really means, "you've just discovered an ant nest in your favorite old leather bag that you never use, so grab that sucker and quickly throw it out into the woods". Or "spring cleaning" which means "hey, it's getting warm outside so go through all your stuff and check every nook and cranny for critters building nests".

The good side to all of this is that I'm forced to declutter even further. When I first moved into my small 12' x 14' tent, I had to be pretty brutal about decluttering. I just didn't have room for much. But I still tried to hang onto a few rarely-used items that I thought I might want down the road. And as I've slowly lost some of those items over time, it's given me cause to reconsider. Like even though it was sad to throw out my favorite leather bag, I didn't replace it. So it turns out I didn't really need it anyway. But when I grabbed my golf clubs for the first time in over a year and found it fully of bees, I "pitched out" the old bag, went out and bought a new bag, and proceeded to the driving range.

It's sort of annoying that my little helpers are so incessantly decluttering on my behalf, but I'm curious to see how things turn out. I guess I should thank them for forcing me to consider how important each and every one of my possessions truly are to me.