The Things That We Love Tell Us What We Are . . .

Why Do We Accumulate So Much Stuff?

I go through definite period of life when I am a saver and then I changed into someone who throws things away. I am never a hoarder. I always have a tendency to throw away rather than to save - and I like things orderly - with a lot of junk is hard to do. It is also hard to do living with 3 savers.

We were going to downsize once threw stuff away and had a garage sale - didn't move and then wished we had not throw and sold things and actually had to re-buy - like squirrel traps!

I am going through a saver period now. I'm trying to think what psychological phenomenon one is in when you are a saver. And what you're feeling when you throw things away - like what is going on in that mind of mine.

I do know of one true hoarder - it is a disease - and not a pretty one.

Second Question (from a 9th grade teacher to his students) -

Would you accept a guarantee lifetime allowance of $50,000 per year (adjusted annually for inflation) if accepting it meant that you could never again earn money from either work or investments?

Hmmm - that is a hard one. Or is it. Let's see - I am on call 24/7. I work 16 hours a day. My salary is $00.00. Why not I ask myself. No so for a young family or a young man who is just starting out. I could do some good things with 50K.


"When I dare to be powerful, to use my strength in the service of my vision, then it becomes less and less important whether I am afraid." ~ Audre Lorde (Happy Birthday)

And happy birthday (Wikipedia) to Yoko Ono - was born to mother Isoko Ono, the granddaughter of Zenjiro Yasuda of the Yasuda banking family, and to father Eisuke Ono who was a descendant of an Emperor of Japan.

Two weeks before she was born, her father was transferred to San Francisco. In 1937, her father was transferred back to Japan and Ono was enrolled at Tokyo's Gakushuin, one of the most exclusive schools in Japan, which, before World War II, was open only to the Japanese imperial family and aristocrats of the House of Peers.

In 1940, the family moved to New York City, where Ono's father was working. In 1941, her father was transferred to Hanoi and the family returned to Japan. Ono was then enrolled in an exclusive Christian primary school run by the Mitsui family. She remained in Tokyo through the great fire-bombing of March 9, 1945. During the fire-bombing, she was sheltered with other members of her family in a special bunker in the Azabu district of Tokyo, far from the heavy bombing. After the bombing, Ono went to the Karuizawa mountain resort with members of her family.

Ono has said that she and her family were forced to beg for food while pulling their belongings in a wheelbarrow; and it was during this period in her life that Ono says she developed her "aggressive" attitude and understanding of "outsider" status when children taunted her and her brother, who were once well-to-do. Other stories have her mother bringing a large amount of property with them to the countryside which they bartered for food.

One often quoted story has her mother bartering a German-made sewing machine for sixty kilograms of rice with which to feed the family. Her father remained in the city and, unbeknownst to them, was eventually incarcerated in a prisoner of war camp in China. In an interview by Democracy Now's Amy Goodman on October 16, 2007, Ono said of her father "He was in French Indochina which is Vietnam actually... in Saigon. He was in a concentration camp."

She has a long bio and it has such interesting facts and info. I have only thought of her as the weird wife of John Lennon. She actually had a lot of struggles in her life.

I think one thing I have learned through looking up these people - I should never judge - and there are two sides to every story.

Preconceived notions are the locks on the door to wisdom. - Merry Browne

Maybe I wouldn't have chosen the same path, but it all comes down to choice and free will.