Before humans learned agriculture and animal husbandry, we were nomads. We moved with the seasons, following the wild plants and game. Hunter-gatherers, you know. Imagine: Time to move to Florida, it’s citrus season.
Nomads gradually became industrialized out of existence. It’s largely unnecessary to travel from place to place, and quite more practical to settle down so you can raise a family and acquire possessions by means of steady employment. Nomads do exist, but we call them migrants, transients, RV-ers, and tax evaders.
Having never lived in any one apartment for more than two years since I started college, I’m somewhat of a nomad, except I can’t readily carry all my possessions as I transverse Massachusetts. I have to pack everything up in boxes. Scores of boxes. Many things are sentimental: Pictures, posters, letters, postcards, knick-knacks, diaries, notebooks, ticket stubs, museum guides, clothes from a time when my clothes were an expression of myself.
And good lord, cassette tapes. I haven’t listened to a cassette in more than a year, and I doubt the urge to dig through my tapes to listen to degraded music (rewind, fast-forward, don’t accidentally press record) will strike anytime soon. Nobody wants tapes, so I picked out the mixes given to me by other people and ditched hundreds of tapes on the curb for the trash. And life continues.
