[at-l] Light weight. Does it end on the trail?

[ackenglass@hotmail.com (Alexis Lee Acken)]

>
> Do you practice the same philosophy in your life outside of hiking? Is
your whole life lightweight? Or just the hiking part? Do you think the "get
light" attitude prevents items that have psychic weight from accumulating
while hiking? Is this a part of the freedom we all seem to enjoy?

The happiest times in my life have always been when I owned nothing that I
wasn't carrying on my back.  Because of that, I tend to try and keep my life
as lightweight as possible.  That being said, for the first time in my life,
I actually own a piece of furniture that wasn't free and that I'll take with
me when I move.  My worldly possessions no longer fit either in my pack or
my Geo Metro.  But, there comes a time in one's life where one enjoys
sleeping on a bed sometimes.  I try to extend the hiking philosophy of
lightweight as far as I can into the rest of my life.  (It may just be a
reaction to the fact that I come from a long line of distinguished hoarders
and packrats. My grandmother had seven hundred and some of those yellow
plastic tubs that Parkay comes in stacked floor to ceiling in her pantry.)
Regardless, I think that hiking makes me very conscious of the environment
and what humanity is doing to it.  It makes me really stop to think about
any purhcase.  Is it worth (to me) the natural resources and energy that
were expended in it's creation?  Few impulse purchases or knicknacks or
standard American consumer goods stand up to that test.  I don't own a tv,
or an armchair, or a kitchen table.  I don't have a tupperware set or a food
processor.  I don't even have a buy kleenex or paper towels.  Although, I
have to admit to owning fourteen pairs of shoes.  It also means that you
save a lot of $$ for hiking trips when you don't bring a SUV load of plastic
**** home from Wally's world every weekend (ie. my parents).

Keepin' it light.

Alexis