One year ago my family and I moved into our home in Canmore, Alberta. 365 days seem to pass very quickly and now, in many ways the nearly six years I spent on the coast feel dreamlike in their signature.

In a nearly comical way I continue to ruminate on the extraordinary journey. The part of the adventure that still makes me laugh, in a nervous, slightly manic way, was the extraordinary effort to haul all of our stuff across the mountains from Victoria back to Canmore. Fishtailing into on-coming traffic a fully loaded, 35-foot long U-Haul van on black ice on a mountain road has a way of sharpening the mind.

Five years ago I had almost no processions. Everything I owned fit in a friend’s Delica van. When I moved into the big old Victorian house on Chambers Street in Fernwood that I lived in for four years, the place was practically empty. It felt pretty good.

Over the next few years, it filled up. Old third hand furniture was discarded for better second hand stuff. The bed I built for Rio and Silas was replaced by two beds bought at a garage sale. As if by spontaneous cellular division, children’s socks, toys and outdoor gear just materialized. When Jenn and I moved her possessions from Canmore to Victoria for our two years together there, we unloaded a medium sized U-Haul into the house, and it started to feel like a home.

By the time we were ready to move our combined lives back to Canmore together last December, we had to rent the largest U-Haul on the lot and still made dozens of trips to Value Village to unload our unwanted processions.

I get attached to things. They represent comfort, security, and ease. But they also act as talisman for memories. Before I made the move from Victoria back to the mountains I got it in my head that I would expunge some of these mementos from my life. I had this notion of throwing something away every day for 180 days to symbolize turning around 180 degrees.

That’s the way I imaged our move back to the rocks. Turning around completely; leaving old patterns, old habits, old fears, and old attachments behind.

I threw a lot of stuff away.  I wish I had kept a list, but that too would have been just another damn thing to keep track of and I didn’t need that. I think the most significant thing I discarded during that time was a clay statue that had been sculpted and given to me by my first significant girlfriend back when we were in high school. It had broken several times over the last twenty-two or –three years and I’d glued it back together. For me it represented an attachment to my past that I had to discard to fully embrace the present. It left without ceremony.

When it came time to finally load the U-Haul, we were overwhelmed with the amount of stuff we still had. It took two and a half days to load the truck. The first three-quarters were easy. The last quarter took a day and a half. By the end I resorted to rigging a net of yellow rope to hold all the stuff in. And then we loaded our pickup: plants, cleaning supplies, the third coffee maker, and other random things we couldn’t let go of.

Why are we holding onto all this stuff I kept asking myself, and random passersby?

Why indeed? Some of our things provide us with necessary comforts, like the toaster, the first coffee maker, the tea pot and the cork screw. We need some things to live day to day, to earn a living, to enjoy our time with our families and friends. But much of the stuff jammed and jimmied into the back of the U-Haul, like much of what we surround ourselves in modern society, isn’t needed to enjoy our lives; it comes between us and our ability to live fully.

The mass of accumulated possessions in modern life force us into a sort of spiritual indentured servitude and insulate us from the real world. We must work like dogs to afford all the things we think will give us pleasure: TV screens the size of a fridge, cars the size of armoured vehicles, a basement full of toys, gadgets, equipment and memorabilia.

Some of it is useful. Much of it is clutter, under our feet and in our hearts.

It holds us down and ties us to the past and creates barriers to living fully in the present.

Much of this stuff is also wasteful and necessitates gobbling up vast quantities of minerals, petroleum and the remaining ancient forests so we can live in massive homes, drive massive vehicles and watch massive televisions.

Why? Four reasons: First, because we are afraid of being uncomfortable. Second, because we are attached to our past. Third, because we are afraid of confronting our own suffering. Fourth, because we are afraid of our impermanence: we are afraid to die.

Our things give us physical comfort. Some of them make our lives easier. But at what cost? In addition to the slavish labour we must undertake day in and day out to afford the things that supposedly make our lives easier, many of these so-called comforts distract us from the true source of our discomfort, and keep us from confronting our own fears. What are we so afraid of that we must distract ourselves for so much of our lives?

All the stuff in our lives keeps us looking backwards. Reflection on, and celebration of our personal history is wonderful. But there comes a time when we have to let it go. Too often we hold onto things long after they have served their purpose. Too often rather than living in the present we surround ourselves with mementos to a time of our lives that no longer serves us.

Suffering is a fact of life. We all suffer. Conquering suffering is the purpose of Buddhism. Suffering is overcome through the practice of daily meditation, purposeful living, practicing loving-kindness, among other tents of the Eightfold Path. Too often we don’t even realize the depth to which we suffer because we’re distracted. We watch TV, or listen to our iPods or amass untold numbers of gadgets that keep us from sitting quietly and reflecting on the true purpose of our lives: to overcome suffering, and to help others do the same.

And then there is death. We are possibly the only creatures on earth who are aware, from a very early age, that we will die. My own sons and I have talked openly about this since they were four years old. Is it any wonder that we are also the only creatures on earth who amass such extraordinary piles of stuff? Huge homes, massive cars, cottages, boats, collections of books and music and play-things. Do we need these things to survive? Absolutely not. Do they extend our lives? In some cases, by a few years. The stress of struggling and yearning for them more often ends our lives prematurely. Do we need them to be happy? Some bring momentary comfort, even joy. But for the most part, our things serve the purpose of insulating us from the inevitability of impermanence. They distract us from the suffering caused by this knowledge, persuade us that we needn’t face this fear and surmount it, and convince us that maybe we will cheat death if only we can protect ourselves from the world with our processions.

This has been on my mind for the last year. Why all this stuff? Like many others, I’ve had fantasies of throwing it all in the dump (or having a nice big bonfire), strapping my backpack on and disappearing to some remote corner of the world, taking with me just a little bit of the stuff. But that would only be a temporary solution. In a few years, there would be more stuff.

And I like my things. Jenn and I have a small, tasteful home filled with books and keepsakes from our travels and photos that have meaning.

The solution isn’t external. It’s not about the world the surrounds me, cluttered or otherwise. It’s about the world within.

There is a wonderful scene in the Pixar movie Up. In the film a deeply unhappy older gentleman, Carl, and an enthusiastic boy named Russell take a tremendous journey by tying thousands of balloons to Carls’ house and flying, dirigible fashion, to South America. The house is filled with memories of Carl’s deceased wife Ellie. While alive, she and Carl dreamed of adventure and visiting Paradise Falls, but instead lived a quiet, even contented, life. When Ellie died, Carl was wracked with guilt for failing to fulfill his wife’s dream.

Towards the end of the movie, Carl is unable to let go of all the memories entangled in his home in order to help one of the duo’s tag-alongs, a ten foot tall bird named Kevin. Russell is furious and departs to help Kevin on his own, leaving Carl to confront his memories alone. In a moment of clarity, Carl realizes that all of the things that he thought mattered were weighing his house down, so he throws them all out the front door. Last to go are the symbolic chairs that he and his wife sat in throughout their marriage. The house is lighter, the balloons lift it off the ground, and Carl flies to both Kevin and Russell’s rescue.

Carl realizes that his past is weighing him down, and that he has to lighten the load before he can live fully in the present.

Does this mean that I’ll be throwing more of my books, photos, my beloved mountain bike and furniture out the window this weekend? No. But I am aware of how all the things in my life tie me to my past, and distract me from addressing what is truly important. I’ve made a commitment to lighten up, both physically and emotionally so that spiritually I can strive for some manner of freedom from suffering.