I’ve been recycling, binning or selling a lot of possessions recently. It’s been thoroughly satisfying. You have to take a few runs at it, like scraping old paint away from a wall, leaving a short time in between goes.
The first time, the really obvious rubbish goes, but some stuff stays because you never know when you might need it. The second time, with that stuff in front of you, you realise you can live without it. Rinse and repeat. Eventually you realise that there is little value in things you once thought indispensable and you almost feel like you weigh less.
I’ve recently deleted eight years worth of blogging, and it felt amazing.
Not so long ago I deleted my Facebook account. That felt good too. I got another one but it was shiny and new.
Last week I deleted my Google+ profile. Nobody noticed.
I’d like my own internet kill switch – one that just flushes everything every so often, whenever you feel like it. For the time being I’ll settle for being aware that none of this really matters that much and I could live without it if I wanted to.
Now if you don’t mind I’m going gardening.