Some of what these men have packed is… impractical at best, Francis.
It’s a long march, James. There will be time to reconsider. Things will drop away. But to ask these men to see these bits of who they are as one more threat to them? No. Let them get some miles behind them before we ask them to do that.
Deciding what material things are part of your life, what you shlep with you across the years, is not as simple as it might seem in principle.
As a young person I always imagined myself living very exactly, where each thing I owned would be entirely deliberate and with precise purpose. I figured I'd be able to just sit down one day, presumably the day I moved out on my own for the first time, and draw up detailed plans for what material possessions my life would include.
I was entirely wrong, of course. Life is not that simple, and I was naïve to the myriad of social and psychological forces that are the true determinants of one's belongings. As with most matters, there never seems to be enough time or energy to do things ideally. There have been so many moves where I've thought to myself this is my chance, this time I'll shed the bulk of nonsense I've accrued and begin anew,
only to find myself uncritically shoving everything into boxes at the eleventh hour just to get out on time. So many times I've looked at an object as I've unpacked it and thought I never use this thing, and I don't think I ever will
before shrugging and shoving it into the back of a drawer.
Internal struggles aside, there is also the ever-present force of those helping you, into the shape that they envision, along the way. As a young person getting started, this is invaluable as without experience it is impossible to know just what you will need and to adequately anticipate and plan for uncommon but regular occurrences. However, just as you do not yet know yourself, those helping also do not know you exactly as you are, or exactly who you will grow to be as you carry your load. What they think you need, what you need now, and what you will need in five years can bear very little resemblance to one another.
A less helpful form of assistance, though no less noble in intent, lies in the specter of the gift. Those somewhat less involved in your life, and perhaps unaware of the space you have access to or the specific shape of the burden you already carry, can be prone to gifting very nice but very demanding accoutrements. These come with the special weight of gratitude that make them quite difficult to part with - what would the gifter think if they were hovering over your shoulder as you discard this symbol of their affection for you?
Yet more intense along this axis is the force of sentiment, be it personal or familial. I have quite a number of little knick-knacks which do me no good except remind me of a particular event or moment in my life which amounts to my personhood in a degree. Likewise, I am impelled from shedding the bulky, heavy, arduous to move fragments of my family's history with which I have been graced. I have a set of boxes containing depression-era dinnerware I have never eaten off of (and feel no pull to ever unpack if I am honest), but having heard the reverent story of their acquisition by a direct but distant relative told so many times I feel that letting them fall away would be nothing short of betrayal.
So, I slog on, carrying what I must and what I don't have to but will anyway for the complex web of reasons which are part of the beautiful fractal of infinitely complex human experience. This last time, though, this most recent move was different from all previous in a fascinating and novel way. For the first time, I have moved in with someone, not just as a roommate, but as a partner.
This unification of our respective burdens necessitated cutting deeper into their flesh to prevent duplication and to physically fit into the same space. It was difficult, forcing myself to finally let things fall away that I've shlepped for years and years in the hope of someday using, but it was also freeing.
And the result. The result is something really beautiful. As I walk through our space, I see bits of each of us - my table, their shelves, my glassware, their television - and they flow together into a kind of continuity, something which is greater than the sum of its parts. With each amputation replaced in turn and quilted into a fabric more sturdy and somehow more cohesive than what came before, the pain of cutting away is healed.
Here's to hauling together.