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Stuff - Cracker - 01-14-2011
I like this essay by Paul Graham. It's hard to break the "acquiring" habit, but he gives good reasons to try.
Stuff
I have too much stuff. Most people in America do. In fact, the poorer people are, the more stuff they seem to have. Hardly anyone is so poor that they can't afford a front yard full of old cars.
It wasn't always this way. Stuff used to be rare and valuable. You can still see evidence of that if you look for it. For example, in my house in Cambridge, which was built in 1876, the bedrooms don't have closets. In those days people's stuff fit in a chest of drawers. Even as recently as a few decades ago there was a lot less stuff. When I look back at photos from the 1970s, I'm surprised how empty houses look. As a kid I had what I thought was a huge fleet of toy cars, but they'd be dwarfed by the number of toys my nephews have. All together my Matchboxes and Corgis took up about a third of the surface of my bed. In my nephews' rooms the bed is the only clear space.
Stuff has gotten a lot cheaper, but our attitudes toward it haven't changed correspondingly. We overvalue stuff.
That was a big problem for me when I had no money. I felt poor, and stuff seemed valuable, so almost instinctively I accumulated it. Friends would leave something behind when they moved, or I'd see something as I was walking down the street on trash night (beware of anything you find yourself describing as "perfectly good"), or I'd find something in almost new condition for a tenth its retail price at a garage sale. And pow, more stuff.
In fact these free or nearly free things weren't bargains, because they were worth even less than they cost. Most of the stuff I accumulated was worthless, because I didn't need it.
What I didn't understand was that the value of some new acquisition wasn't the difference between its retail price and what I paid for it. It was the value I derived from it. Stuff is an extremely illiquid asset. Unless you have some plan for selling that valuable thing you got so cheaply, what difference does it make what it's "worth?" The only way you're ever going to extract any value from it is to use it. And if you don't have any immediate use for it, you probably never will.
Companies that sell stuff have spent huge sums training us to think stuff is still valuable. But it would be closer to the truth to treat stuff as worthless.
In fact, worse than worthless, because once you've accumulated a certain amount of stuff, it starts to own you rather than the other way around. I know of one couple who couldn't retire to the town they preferred because they couldn't afford a place there big enough for all their stuff. Their house isn't theirs; it's their stuff's.
And unless you're extremely organized, a house full of stuff can be very depressing. A cluttered room saps one's spirits. One reason, obviously, is that there's less room for people in a room full of stuff. But there's more going on than that. I think humans constantly scan their environment to build a mental model of what's around them. And the harder a scene is to parse, the less energy you have left for conscious thoughts. A cluttered room is literally exhausting.
(This could explain why clutter doesn't seem to bother kids as much as adults. Kids are less perceptive. They build a coarser model of their surroundings, and this consumes less energy.)
I first realized the worthlessness of stuff when I lived in Italy for a year. All I took with me was one large backpack of stuff. The rest of my stuff I left in my landlady's attic back in the US. And you know what? All I missed were some of the books. By the end of the year I couldn't even remember what else I had stored in that attic.
And yet when I got back I didn't discard so much as a box of it. Throw away a perfectly good rotary telephone? I might need that one day.
The really painful thing to recall is not just that I accumulated all this useless stuff, but that I often spent money I desperately needed on stuff that I didn't.
Why would I do that? Because the people whose job is to sell you stuff are really, really good at it. The average 25 year old is no match for companies that have spent years figuring out how to get you to spend money on stuff. They make the experience of buying stuff so pleasant that "shopping" becomes a leisure activity.
How do you protect yourself from these people? It can't be easy. I'm a fairly skeptical person, and their tricks worked on me well into my thirties. But one thing that might work is to ask yourself, before buying something, "is this going to make my life noticeably better?"
A friend of mine cured herself of a clothes buying habit by asking herself before she bought anything "Am I going to wear this all the time?" If she couldn't convince herself that something she was thinking of buying would become one of those few things she wore all the time, she wouldn't buy it. I think that would work for any kind of purchase. Before you buy anything, ask yourself: will this be something I use constantly? Or is it just something nice? Or worse still, a mere bargain?
The worst stuff in this respect may be stuff you don't use much because it's too good. Nothing owns you like fragile stuff. For example, the "good china" so many households have, and whose defining quality is not so much that it's fun to use, but that one must be especially careful not to break it.
Another way to resist acquiring stuff is to think of the overall cost of owning it. The purchase price is just the beginning. You're going to have to think about that thing for years—perhaps for the rest of your life. Every thing you own takes energy away from you. Some give more than they take. Those are the only things worth having.
I've now stopped accumulating stuff. Except books—but books are different. Books are more like a fluid than individual objects. It's not especially inconvenient to own several thousand books, whereas if you owned several thousand random possessions you'd be a local celebrity. But except for books, I now actively avoid stuff. If I want to spend money on some kind of treat, I'll take services over goods any day.
I'm not claiming this is because I've achieved some kind of zenlike detachment from material things. I'm talking about something more mundane. A historical change has taken place, and I've now realized it. Stuff used to be valuable, and now it's not.
In industrialized countries the same thing happened with food in the middle of the twentieth century. As food got cheaper (or we got richer; they're indistinguishable), eating too much started to be a bigger danger than eating too little. We've now reached that point with stuff. For most people, rich or poor, stuff has become a burden.
The good news is, if you're carrying a burden without knowing it, your life could be better than you realize. Imagine walking around for years with five pound ankle weights, then suddenly having them removed.
_________________________________________
I have purged my house and I still have a house full of stuff. I am going to do the keep 1, toss 3 purge next. That way I can mathematically get rid of stuff and make the hard decisions. Maybe somebody else will enjoy my stuff more than I do. I don't use most of what I have. It is really bothering me lately. I am also not going to buy anything, ANYTHING, besides food and gas for the entire month of February (eff Valentine's Day, we are just going out to eat) because I already screwed up January.
RE: Stuff - Middle Finger - 01-14-2011
Great post that I can relate to. I am always trying to be increasingly uncluttered for the reasons stated above.
RE: Stuff - sally - 01-14-2011
There is nothing in my house that I don't use daily. Well besides for my step mill because it's a torture device.
RE: Stuff - QueenBee - 01-14-2011
I remember George Carlin doing a rant on stuff..it was funny. About our homes just being a place for our stuff.
My husband and I are in process of purging some of our old stuff. But of course, then we will see empty spaces and will want more stuff.
RE: Stuff - Cracker - 01-14-2011
(01-14-2011, 11:31 AM)sally Wrote: There is nothing in my house that I don't use daily. Well besides for my step mill because it's a torture device.
How do you do this? I am very interested. What is your system?
RE: Stuff - username - 01-14-2011
We recently replaced the carpeting in our upstairs/bedrooms. I had to pack up everything on closet floors, in drawers and all the bric-a-brac on top. I tossed or donated a ton of "stuff". It was great. I'm gradually going through the downstairs and garage now. I think by the time I'm done I will have gotten rid of about 1⁄3 to 1⁄2 of our stuff. I do feel lighter.
I even question the wisdom of keeping large amounts of sentimental stuff. My parents kept scrupulous photo albums. After my dad died, my mom mentioned that she'd like my sister and I to go through them and keep the pictures we want and toss the rest. We haven't done it yet. Out of the 1000's of pictures they have, I might want 10 (if that). I already have most of the special ones. It's sad to toss them but that's probably what's going to happen.
RE: Stuff - Cracker - 01-14-2011
(01-14-2011, 03:19 PM)username Wrote: We recently replaced the carpeting in our upstairs/bedrooms. I had to pack up everything on closet floors, in drawers and all the bric-a-brac on top. I tossed or donated a ton of "stuff". It was great. I'm gradually going through the downstairs and garage now. I think by the time I'm done I will have gotten rid of about 1⁄3 to 1⁄2 of our stuff. I do feel lighter.
I even question the wisdom of keeping large amounts of sentimental stuff. My parents kept scrupulous photo albums. After my dad died, my mom mentioned that she'd like my sister and I to go through them and keep the pictures we want and toss the rest. We haven't done it yet. Out of the 1000's of pictures they have, I might want 10 (if that). I already have most of the special ones. It's sad to toss them but that's probably what's going to happen.
It's freaking amazing how much stuff we have. You don't notice until you empty drawers and cupboards.
Donate your stuff and get receipts. It really makes a sizeable difference on your tax returns.
I'm bad about storing electronic pictures and never printing them. I need to organize all those into electronic albums. Someday, maybe. I have too much paper around here. I really need a shredder. I'm always afraid I'll need this paper or that report.
I'm going to find a place that picks up my stuff and leaves the receipt in the mailbox. The less fuss it is to get it gone, the more likely I am to finish. Sometimes I just chuck stuff in the trash to get it gone.
RE: Stuff - sally - 01-14-2011
(01-14-2011, 02:41 PM)Cracker Wrote:(01-14-2011, 11:31 AM)sally Wrote: There is nothing in my house that I don't use daily. Well besides for my step mill because it's a torture device.
How do you do this? I am very interested. What is your system?
I only buy the stuff I need and I only buy it brand new. No garage sale or ebay addiction here.
I also go through the house once a week with a big trash bag and I don't let any junk accumulate, if I haven't read that magazine by now then I'm probally not going to so it can go in the trash. Things like toys, shoes, and clothes that we have no use for anymore also go straight in the trash. If I bag it up with the intent on giving it away then it will end up just sitting there because I'll never get around to doing it.
All of our important papers go into a drawer in the office and I go through it every couple of months and file the stuff we need for taxes or whatever and throw the other ones out.
And then all the bullshit that my husband wants to hoard like broken electronics, his remote control car hobby station that he never used, or old computers can go down to his warehouse.
RE: Stuff - Duchess - 01-14-2011
I've been thinking about this since Cracker first mentioned it in another thread a few weeks ago & I've decided that I don't really have "stuff". I have a lot of clothes, handbags & footwear but, I don't have a bunch of crap cluttering up my home, I do have books in damn near every room though, I don't look at them as clutter. "Stuff" to me means clutter & I wouldn't be able to think if I was surrounded by clutter, it would transfer to my mind, I know that sounds crazy, maybe it is but, it's how I roll. I MUST have neat & tidy around me in order to function properly.
Jesus Christ, I sound like an eccentric old bat.
RE: Stuff - Middle Finger - 01-14-2011
He should put YOU in his warehouse.
RE: Stuff - sally - 01-14-2011
(01-14-2011, 07:13 PM)Middle Finger Wrote: He should put YOU in his warehouse.
You should invest in a warehouse so you don't have keep storing all of your hairpieces and Monistat in the hall closet.
RE: Stuff - Cracker - 01-14-2011
(01-14-2011, 07:12 PM)Duchess Wrote:
I've been thinking about this since Cracker first mentioned it in another thread a few weeks ago & I've decided that I don't really have "stuff". I have a lot of clothes, handbags & footwear but, I don't have a bunch of crap cluttering up my home, I do have books in damn near every room though, I don't look at them as clutter. "Stuff" to me means clutter & I wouldn't be able to think if I was surrounded by clutter, it would transfer to my mind, I know that sounds crazy, maybe it is but, it's how I roll. I MUST have neat & tidy around me in order to function properly.
Jesus Christ, I sound like an eccentric old bat.
I think neat and organized is very calming. It's my preference. If I come home and someone left a mess, I get pissy or anxious.
Every bookshelf is full at my house. I have read all the books and won't read most of them again. Why do I have them? I'm only keeping first editions and a few reference works. (See, can't let go of my first editions. Shame on me.)
I also have tons of pictures on the mantle and side tables. I am going to put every sentimental picture on one wall downstairs and clear off every table top (also getting rid of the sofa table, end tables and just sticking with the coffee table). I don't want shelves and tables full of things I have to dust. I am going to stick with one piece of art in each room and maybe a mirror. I want more empty than full. I think I am going to pare down the items I collect, too. That will hurt a little. I am leaving the kitchen for last because I seem to think I need everything in there.
Sally is a zen master. I don't buy things at yard sales, but I do buy antique glass on ebay. I will stop right now. I found a kidney foundation that picks up loads from my home even when I am at work, so I'm going with them. I don't care if they harvest kidneys from travelers as long as they leave the receipt. hahaha
RE: Stuff - sally - 01-14-2011
This song actually reminds me of a few people I know. I don't know what the hell they're thinking when they buy all that crap.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_cWutmOw85E
RE: Stuff - Cracker - 01-14-2011
I want the Jesus toaster. They should make those.
RE: Stuff - Maggot - 01-14-2011
(01-14-2011, 09:31 PM)Cracker Wrote:
I want the Jesus toaster. They should make those.
Why dont YOU make a Jesus toaster Cracker? Why dont YOU do it? Then you can become they.
RE: Stuff - Cracker - 01-14-2011
Nah. I'm more into painting this week. The caulk is warped a few place around the garden tub. Do I strip it off, paint, then put in the new caulk or do I do the new caulk first then paint? I needs to know...
RE: Stuff - Lady Cop - 01-14-2011
i'm taking it with me damn it! i didn't spend all these years collecting fine old English china, my village, antiques, books, records, art, photographs, etc. etc. to leave it behind or to the salvation army! i'm going to be buried with all my stuff like a pharaoh! fuck you!
me----->
![[Image: Cleopatra-3.jpg]](http://i717.photobucket.com/albums/ww173/prestonjjrtr/Smileys/Egyptian/Cleopatra-3.jpg)
RE: Stuff - Cracker - 01-14-2011
I would sell that crap and go on a long vacation. Take your camera and your laptop so we can join you.
RE: Stuff - thekid65 - 01-15-2011
My biggest problem, is my kid. She will not get rid of anything...we have to pitch stuff when she's not around, just to avoid a hissy-fit. We're honestly somewhat concerned about her turning into one of those "hoarders" that you see on TV. We've found Easter candy that's a year old (same with Halloween candy), she's got B-day gifts that are unopened from several years ago (and obviously has no interest in playing with)...and shit, her 13th B-day was last Sept...shes still got deflated balloons up in her bedroom from the party (I guess she wants to keep the memory of a great party alive).
Me? I like to douche out everything thats not being used. I can't stand clutter...but believe me, I've caught the wrath for chucking stuff...not because it was being used, but because "It wasnt my stuff, and I had no right to throw it away".
This is an ongoing battle in my household....and I cant seem to win.
RE: Stuff - username - 01-15-2011
I absolutely sneak purge my husband and kids' stuff. It's a testament to how much shit we have--they rarely notice anything missing.