730 things — Day 48 of 365

 Oh, my goodness, Greg McKeown has written a new book! He is the author of the wonderful Essentialism, which has become something of a minimalist classic. His new book — which, from the Look Inside function on Amazon, promises in effect to be an exploration of the Taoist practice of wu-wei — is called Effortless and published yesterday. So excited!

I say this even undeterred by my recent disappointment in Fumio Sasaki's new book Hello Habits, which I didn't care for even though I absolutely loved his first book Goodbye Things.

In exploring this joyous event and looking up the links to share with you, I also stumbled upon a book I didn't know, The Art of Emptiness by Carolyn Hetzel. As the Kindle price is really modest, I've just got a copy and am off to read it right now.

But before I do that, here are the items leaving my home today.

Firstly, a pandemic mask that I've never used at all. As I have four others on wear-wash-repeat and rarely go anywhere except for a little walk or up to the grocery store or post office, a fifth seemed excessive, so I put it out for the charity shop.

And then I also sent on its way another snack tray — this time a stainless steel one. 

It occurred to me that I bought it originally not because it is especially useful to me but because I really like Sikhs, and when I've been to a Sikh gurdwara and eaten in the langar there, they always had stainless steel snack trays for their food. So I convinced myself life would somehow be better with a snack tray. I did eat from it sometimes — but not because I needed to or because it was more appropriate for my food (it wasn't) but because I wanted to eat from a stainless steel snack tray. Eventually I noticed this is a bit silly since I am not a Sikh and I also have a perfectly good plate. And you can obviously love Sikh people without seeking solidarity in stainless steel snack trays. So I keep them in my heart but sent the snack tray to the charity shop.