I feel hot and bothered just looking at the titles of most people's responses to this topic. It's all about each person's special reasons for hanging on to old things. They're not just things, of course, they have special memories and meanings attached.

Well, I am all for throwing stuff away. Most especially I'm for throwing away the stuff that has special memories and special meanings. I want my house to be a space where things can happen. I want to walk into a room and feel a sense of possibility, and spaciousness. I don't want to be reminded in countless ways of the past.

One of the reasons I feel this way is because of a writer called Erich Fromm, who wrote a book called 'To Have or To Be'. Reading this book at the age of nineteen has had a lifelong effect on me. In the book he says there are two essential ways of being - having or being. Our society encourages 'having'. We are encouraged to take a lot of photos when we are experiencing something important, like a wedding or a trip, so we can 'have' the experience, for later. We're encouraged to take a lot of notes when we're learning, so we can 'have' that information for easy reference. We're encouraged to buy a lot of stuff and take it home to have it. Even in our relationships, it's thought desirable to 'have' a lot of friends, or a lot of sex for example.

 Fromm proposes something radically different, which I have been following, partly due to natural inclination and temperament, but no doubt partly because of his work, for my adult life. I rarely take photos when I'm travelling - I prefer to immerse myself in the moment, instead. I don't keep momentos or even gifts I can't use immediately. I am a big giver awayerer. Ask me if you can borrow a book and I'll give it to you. I have just one handbag, one watch. I aspire to the kind of list of possessions pioneers in nineteenth century novels used to have: two day dresses and a good one for sundays. Two pairs of shoes. I don't, of course. I have way too many dresses and way too many shoes, but I see the beauty in having a small and replaceable pile of stuff.

Fromm's idea is that by not having, you create more space for real being. In learning for example - by not taking notes you require your brain to prrocess the information you're taking in, then and there. You're making yourself be alive and responsive in that moment, instead of a curator, busy accumulating notes or photos or momentoes for looking at later. How much are you really experiencing something if you're seeing it behind a camera?

It's hard to accept that time is passing, that we will never have this moment again, and that our days are numbered. It's the same with relationships, and our childhoods. It's hard to accept that something is over. And yet by requiring ourselves to do this, moment by moment, day by day, I think I am more responsive and creative in this moment. I like to constantly create the possibility for something new.

Throwing stuff away, even precious, valuable stuff, can be lightening and liberating. I'm finishing a novel at the moment, and as I peel away the paragraphs and the words I am finding it's becoming a more living thing, more muscular and powerful as it becomes sparer. It's more spacious, with room for more meaning in the gaps between ideas that have been created by me peeling the words away.

Applying Fromm's principle by changing the verb you use from a having one to a being one, creates changes. Instead of having a lot of friends, you can be really friendly. Instead of having a lot of sex, you can make a lot of love. Instead of having a lot things or information, you can know a lot of stuff. I listen to myself sometimes, and by changing the verb I feel a lot more alive, instantly.