31–40 of 144 posts
"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." On a related note , Steve Jobs has no furniture.
what does he have? walls and a floor?
I was initially heartbroken but then I started thinking how many times I had actually looked at any of those photos since I took them and, for the majority of then, the answer was zero. After that, my relationship with stuff shifted radically.
A few years later, I lost a wooden spoon which was pretty much the only thing I held an emotional attachment to anymore. That thing was older than I was and had been the one constant in cooking which is a huge part of my life. I moped for a year, shrugged and got a new one.
I'm starting to seriously consider that, once a year, I will find the thing currently most precious to me and get rid of it.
A couple of things I've been doing: When kids have a birthday or holiday with gifts, we tell them that they have to throw away or give away an equal amount of stuff. It works surprisingly well. I've been thinning out my media stuff (books, videos, old records, etc.) in batches during moves, but recently began selling what I could on amazon. It's mostly CDs and books, but in the past two months it's totaled about $800…
(For those of you who don't want to click the second link, here's the money shot:
List the ten most expensive things (products, services, or experiences) that you have ever paid for (including houses, cars, university degrees, marriage ceremonies, divorce settlements, and taxes). Then, list the ten items that you have ever bought that gave you the most happiness. Count how many items appear on both lists. )
(July 2007)
One problem I've found with it is that people buy me worthless gifts (gifts I don't derive value from because I don't use them).
I've created an online list of things I want at kaboodle.com, or more exactly, a list of things I wouldn't mind possessing, but my family refuses buying anything on the list because that's "spoiling the surprise". I would prefer they stop giving me gifts altogether, but they won't no matter what.
My favorite quote from PG's article:
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.
Even as a child, I was pretty indifferent to stuff (A 9th grade essay wanted us to write about our most prized possession and I couldn't come up with anything except my computer). But I think the final break for me happened when inadequate backup procedures caused me to lose several years worth of digital photos. I was initially heartbroken but then I started thinking how many times I had actually looked at any of th…
Being affected by the loss of a spoon shouldn't make you want to never love a spoon again (that way lies crappy romantic comedies). The idea here is to concentrate our attachment to objects, not eliminate it.
Except books—but books are different. I suspect most people have their own personal caveat to this essay. Mine isn't books (I usually give good books to friends after reading them, and bad books to ebay). My own caveat would be raw materials for building or repairing things (electrical components, nuts and bolts, tools, etc).
It's not especially inconvenient to own several thousand books Until you find yourself having to move.
"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." On a related note , Steve Jobs has no furniture.
what does he have? walls and a floor?