Clutter and simplification

I've written before about the urge to simplify life which seems to animate some of the RV bloggers I read.  I've said that I like my "stuff" and while I'm engaged in an ongoing effort to rid myself of things I haven't used or even looked at for years, that's not my principal motivation in wanting to venture forth with the Beast.

A piece in this morning's New York Times raises the issue of "de-cluttering."  Pamela Druckerman points out that the most debilitating clutter of our lives may have less to do with stuff than with the intrusions of smartphones and Facebook:

But the more stuff I shed, the more I realize that we de-clutterers feel besieged by more than just our possessions. We’re also overwhelmed by the intangible detritus of 21st-century life: unreturned emails; unprinted family photos; the ceaseless ticker of other people’s lives on Facebook; the heightened demands of parenting; and the suspicion that we’ll be checking our phones every 15 minutes, forever. I can sit in an empty room, and still get nothing done.

Man, does that resonate.  As I prepare to take off for a few days, I realize that cell-phone signal strength is high on my list of desiderata in choosing places to hang out.   Gotta think more about that.

Today's agenda for the rig involves putting patch tape on that crack, and flushing out the anti-freeze.  The doves have returned to my neck of the southern Arizona "woods." I think that means that it's time  for me to fly the coop for a while.