DEBRIS.COMgood for a laugh, or possibly an aneurysm

I’ve had a dedicated net connection for over three years. The result: 95% of the books, CDs, computers, disk drives, RAM and CPU upgrades, printers, scanners, monitors, and pieces of furniture I’ve purchased in that time, and probably half of everything else I’ve bought other than food, has been mail-ordered via the Web.

Which means, among other things, that once or twice a week some uniformed truck-driver guy comes to my door with yet another box, to ask for a signature and chuckle at the enormous jumble of the carcasses of previous deliveries in my garage. Four times a year I spend a Saturday afternoon cutting down boxes to be recycled, in what I consider to be a modern analogue to traditional pantheistic seasonal celebrations.

Modern man is not particularly reliant on agricultural cycles and so has little reason to feel connected to traditional Spring and Fall celebrations — the only thing I “plant” is my ass in a chair, and the only things I “harvest” are the log files from my server. So, whereas ancient civilizations celebrated the Vernal Equinox as the start of the breeding and farming season, I celebrate the Vernal Equinox by cutting down cardboard boxes. And when ancient civilizations celebrated the Autumnal Equinox with the Fall harvest, my celebration is cutting down more cardboard boxes.

The pantheists also celebrated the longest and shortest days of the year, the Summer Solstice and Winter Solstice. I have modern analogues for these celebrations too, because as a benefit of modern civilization I am able to mail-order books and CDs and so on all year long. So every December 21 I dedicate some of the very few hours of sunlight and — you guessed it — cut down cardboard boxes. I do the same thing every June 22. If you’re wondering why I’m a month early this time out, it’s because I have so many damn cardboard boxes.