Zen is a school of thought, a state of being. A way of thinking. Traditionally, it is a school of Mahayana Buddhism known for emphasizing an acceptance of the present, embracing spontaneous action, and emancipating the self-conscious & judgmental thinking.

For better or worse, its meaning has evolved as other schools of thought have adopted and interpreted it. In the Mike Lee School of Thought, I merely make a contemporary addition to the traditional definition: excising physical belongings and converting them to a non-corporeal form, namely, the digital format. In my geeky way, this is what I call Digital Zen.

(Yes, I'm a big fat geek. I admit it.)

(And yes, I realize the hypocrisy of Digital Zen. I'll get to that later.)

First, let me admit something else. I have a Collector's Mentality. This means I like to collect things, almost compulsively. If I obtain something that belongs to a set, I have to get every other item within that set. Knowing this, I'm judicious about what I buy, because starting a collection of pricy items gets real expensive real fast.

Now, onto excising physical belongings.

Like most people, I love music. I love music so much that I used to own over 600 CDs. That number could have been smaller had I not obsessively collected all the albums of my favorite artists, of course. But hey, everyone's got their vices. At least mine ain't shooting up heroin in alleyways at night.

I love movies too. And sure, who doesn't? I never had a vast DVD collection though, because I consciously stayed away from starting one, knowing how expensive it would have gotten. Gosh, imagine all the boxed sets I would have purchased. Good thing I know my limits.

I also love books. I'm a total bookworm. Fortunately, I've been good about not buying every book by my favorite authors, though the temptation was there. However, since I consume books quickly, I've always needed a constant stream of books to maintain my appetite.

Though I'm no professional, I also love taking photographs. The Collector's Mentality doesn't apply here as much, but I used to have shoeboxes and shoeboxes (and a few photo albums) of photographs. Sadly, I'd rarely look through them once I stored them away, but I still kept taking new ones regardless.

I've also had a few personal organizers to keep track of family & friends' contact information and birthdays. This included a meticulous calendar to manage my hectic schedule too. Some friends have moved around so much that their entries are littered with scribbled-out addresses and phone numbers, making for a very messy personal organizer.

No surprise here, but I also love to write. Give me a pen and a notebook, and I'll try my best to conjure up a story or three. Maybe I'll even record a wacky personal experience or funny conversation. If I were to put all of these weekly essays onto paper, that would be a lot of trees.

All of these belongings—music, movies, books, photographs, addresses, calendars, and essays—amounted to a lot of shelf space. A lot. For a single guy who's lived in lots of different places, this was always a chore to move.

Then one day, I decided to simplify my life. To live more Zen-like. More specifically, to excise my personal belongings. I thought, "What if there's an earthquake one day? Or a fire? Or I have to suddenly move overseas? How will I deal with all of this stuff?"

The geek in me answered, "You can digitize all of that. Then you won't have to carry around all those CDs, DVDs, books, photographs, personal organizers, and boxes of personal essays. All you'll need is an external hard drive and maybe a few back-up DVDs." There's also the solution of OmniDrive.com and other online hard drive services. That would mean I'd get to keep all of my stuff in a non-corporeal form and not have to lug around pounds and pounds of stuff. Goodbye problem, hello technology!

So I've been happily digitizing my life. I'm sure my grandparents would never understand this, but my children and grandchildren will. They'll probably even go, "Well, duh."

But ah, there is hypocrisy in this Digital Zen idea. How am I really excising personal belongings when I'm merely converting them into another form? I haven't really gotten rid of them. Aren't my belongings still controlling me? And even worse, don't I have an excuse to collect even more now, since it's so easy to own more of them?

Sigh… Yes. There's the rub. Digital Zen is a sham, a façade, a hypocrisy. All I've really done is excise the weight of my belongings. Then there's the worry of someone swiping a magnet near my hard drives or a fire burning my back-up DVDs. This wouldn't be a concern if I used OmniDrive.com however, unless all of their data centers get hit with an earthquake or something, Heaven forbid.

That's okay though. I don't really care about the hypocrisy of this idea. It feels great having all of these things in a portable and easy-to-access form. That's the great benefit of digitizing my belongings. I can move to another country right now and only need to carry a laptop, a few back-up DVDs, and some clothes and toiletries. Being lightweight and mobile engenders quite a feeling of freedom, I must say. Almost, I dare say, Zen-like.

The hypocrisy really comes down to a matter of poor labeling. Perhaps I should call this Digital Life or Digital Memories or something. Digital Zen is just such a cool name though, you know?

And at least I'm a big fat geek, sitting here digitizing my life and not shooting up heroin in alleyway somewhere, right?