Somewhere between asceticism and an orgy of consumerism and excess lies the middle way. I must confess I have not found it yet. I tend to waffle in my struggle to find the center. Against my better judgment I tend to err toward excess. Here I am camping in comparative luxury with my new trailer and my new truck, and yet I am abstaining from alcohol, sugar, carbs, grains, dairy, beans, any thing artificial or processed. I continue to meditate daily. I fantasize about tiny houses. Living more simply. After seeing the film “Minimalism,” I have thought about whether I could reduce my closet down to 30 pieces of clothing, including socks, underwear, pants, shirts, shorts, and coats. I keep doing the math. It doesn’t add up. I must keep my disco pants and my disco shorts and my disco hoodie and my disco bowtie. That’s four. There are things too difficult to give up. And that’s the project, isn’t it? What can you live without? What’s necessary? Who do you love? Do they know? What hurts? What helps? Are you prepared to find the center out and hold on loosely, loosely, but for dear life? Beckett: We try, fail, fail again, fail better. I’m failing my way toward the middle.
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michael jarmer 
Yeah, I don’t think you ought to take it out on the clothes, man. Thank God you are keeping the disco ensemble! That was my first panicked thought.
I’ve always liked the bubble, but I’m kind of disappointed about the truck. I don’t think mother earth minds too much that you have too many clothes in your closet, but she might care about the excess carbon spent every day. Though, who knows, maybe your truck is a hybrid and gets better mileage than your Subaru or Volvo or whatever it was you were driving before? Mumble.
The truck is better on gas than the mini-van was. And it’s not one of those monster trucks. It’s midsize and kind of cuddly.
I sigh.