My Thesis:
I become a different human being when I travel.
If you walk into my home office in sunny Tempe Arizona, you will likely think two things.
- why does this guy work in a cave?
- Is he a horder?
The key words here are “shade” and “piles.” Piles of books, keyboards (apparently I have a keyboard fetish) notebooks, pens, and toys cover every horizontal surface. My drawers and closet aren’t much different. I have no idea idea how many Harley T-shirts I own, but one year when I tossed out a few my wife had a sour look on her face. I said, “what?”
She pointed out that I had just “tossed” over $500 in shirts. I think that’s when I started to realize I had a problem.
When I travel however, its like I’m a different person. I suddenly become crazy efficient. I once took a five day business trip with just a 20 liter backpack. In case your wondering 20 liters is not nearly as big as you think - there are six year olds with backpacks bigger than that. They need them ever since they got rid of school lockers. I see them every fall walking to class looking like little old men and women hunched under the crushing weight of all those books.
But when I travel, whether it is on a plane, or on my Harley, I become like a Tetris expert, packing shapes and sizes into impossibly small layers until they seem to vanish. I carefully select my clothes to minimize how much I have to carry. I travel with tiny optimal electronics - my phone does most of the heavy lifting, but my MacBook is a beast. A power bank a few cables, and I’m ready to go.
I don’t know why I’m like that. I remember one time I was on an overnight retreat with some friends. They all had these rollons and backpacks. A couple guys had checked luggage. I had a backpack. That was it. They were all like, “Where’s your stuff?” I responded, “How much stuff do you need for two days one night? Besides, I’m wearing half of it now!”
My wife would have been so proud. She just wishes I was like that at home.
Honestly, I think at home the issue is space. I think I have lots of it. Hell there’s a whole house. I have the freedom to obsess over quality, or performance, and I’ll go through a ton of different types of the same product looking for the perfect solution. I wish I was making this up. I may need to seek counseling but one fall I spent over $1,000 on markers. That’s right. Markers. I was developing a cartoon style for writing blog posts - this was before the days of AI and generative images. The worst part was that the best markers turned out to be $2 crayolas. That’s right, those big fat crayon like markers we all used in kindergarten. 10 colors. 20 cents a marker. That’s all I needed.
I donated most of the rest. Well, my wife donated most of them. I managed to smuggle a few boxes out of the goodwill box and stash them in my office. She can’t see them in the dark behind the stacks of notebooks and keyboards.