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Hoarding

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Re: Hoarding

#61

Post by toss1 »

magicalhippo wrote: post #18
phaedrus wrote: post #13

I grew up in two hoarder houses (parents and grandparents). I disagree with many of the things said in this article. First of all the thing about hoarding being triggered by loss: I think this has more to do with psychoanalysts looking for an explanatory reason of that sort. (I.e. Freudian bullshit.) From my observation it is more of a genetic personality trait that the person has already had the inclination to hoard…

> it's an inability to make decisions I think your polyurethane example mirrors what I see with my mom, and to some degree in myself, and it's something different. It's a fear that you're throwing away something useful. It's not that me or my mom is unable to decide, it's just that we don't want to throw it away because perhaps one day it might be useful (to us or someone else), so we decide to keep it. I'm trying to…

>>"can't let go in case it might be useful... "

Yup, that's a key right there.

I do have a more inherited items from my family's past than I can use and have a hard time getting rid of these items.

I find that it is definitely easier when I can give it to someone who will care for it, or even a charity thrift store (e.g., some animal shelters run them for funding). Just tossing it in the dumpster or leaving it in the rain is almost painful, but if it seems that it'll be taken care of (especially better than I would), it's all right.

Similarly, I work with some very expensive materials at my composites business, and offcuts can be valuable. I cringe to put those offcuts in the dumpster, but when they accumulate too much, just giving them away on Craigslist to someone who will use them feels fine.

So, both the inability to make decisions, and also the ability to let someone else make the decision that you'd make (i.e., figure out how to put the stuff to use), are both helpful angles.

Re: Hoarding

#62

Post by c22 »

Tao3300 wrote: post #34
ksec wrote: post #4

I am not sure if I am in that group. But somewhat counter intuitively I would actually hoard a lot less if I have huge amount of money. i.e Most things could easily be replaced or bought. I do have videos and music files, but I dont think I hoard them. I keep them because I know none of the file / video / music streaming services can be trusted. I think of it as a Distribution problem. Not a hoarding problem.

> I keep them because I know none of the file / video / music streaming services can be trusted. That's not an emotional attachment, that's just practical. My kids are going to be like "Neil Young? Sorry, never heard of him" because he pulled his music off Spotify -- a blunder that lies somewhere in the space between a disservice to future generations and an "own goal".

Neil Young is still on Pandora it looks like.

Re: Hoarding

#63

Post by michaelcampbell »

javchz wrote: post #9

I think should be a balance. I went full digital Marie Kondo a few years back, and I regret it. I'm into a lot of niche media, like covers or small indie band scenes. And at the beginning having everything in Spotify or YouTube seems nice... Until there is a rights issue or something worse (like an artist being doxed) and the song it's deleted and became lost media. Now I backup everything in a 2x2TB HDD just in case…

> I went full digital Marie Kondo a few years back, and I regret it.

I would love to hear/read an exposition of this at some point.

Re: Hoarding

#64

Post by marymkearney »

I might have the opposite problem. I like my space way more than my stuff. I want all my corners cleaned out, all paper mail recycled, all counters clear. Luckily I haven't yet tipped into "compulsive decluttering" which is apparently the opposite side of the hoarding coin.

"Compulsive decluttering is the act of throwing items, or clutter, away, or getting rid of them in an attempt to "clean up".... Even though it is the polar opposite of compulsive hoarding, the two are related because they both fall under the umbrella of OCD in different ways. Compulsive decluttering is also known as compulsive decluttering disorder, and is also known as "compulsive spartanism." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compulsive_decluttering

Re: Hoarding

#65

Post by tempestn »

hommelix wrote: post #56
magicalhippo wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a strategy I'm trying to adopt as well. For a lot of things though the answer is that it's not easy to get a replacement easily and cheaply (no Amazon in Norway), which makes the decision tough. Another strategy I'm trying to adopt is one my brother-in-law lives by, which is to focus on one "thing" at a time. Like he recently wanted to get an RC race car. So he sold his previous "thing" and bought an RC car s…

I tried this strategy as well, but I've been disappointed when business update their portfolio. Typical example keeping a couple of door knob in case the old model is not available in future, so that all innrr doors in the house have the same knob.

It's funny, I was just chatting with a friend at brunch today about this thread, and he mentioned the same thing. Turns out we both do keep a dedicated box of extra house parts for this reason. There are indeed things that aren't easily replaced and it can make sense to keep. But if you're going to do that, you want to make sure there's a system so you can find them if you do end up needing them, and also so you don't end up with crap you don't need taking up space.

Re: Hoarding

#66

Post by chelonian »

bombcar wrote: post #28
jrockway wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe software engineers are just paranoid. Our best practice is to take hoarding to the extreme; keep every version of every file that ever existed, add a note about it, and push the entire history to each new checkout. It probably does stem from some sort of loss aversion. We have all wished for longer undo history, things like git take that to the extreme. Now that we can't lose things, we're free to work without…

There's a very particular pain you get when you know you had something and you lost it; or worse, you know you threw it away. It may be related to too good of a memory, or autism, or whatever, but there are parts of my life where I have way too good a memory for everything I have and had, and other parts where I'm like "yeah I got a lot of something like that, but who cares".

> There's a very particular pain you get when you know you had something and you lost it; or worse, you know you threw it away.

CONSOLATION GROOK

Losing one glove is certainly painful, but nothing compared to the pain, of losing one, throwing away the other, and finding the first one again.

--Piet Hein https://www.phys.ufl.edu/~thorn/grooks.html

Re: Hoarding

#67

Post by lostmsu »

jonhohle wrote: post #33
javchz wrote: post #9

I think should be a balance. I went full digital Marie Kondo a few years back, and I regret it. I'm into a lot of niche media, like covers or small indie band scenes. And at the beginning having everything in Spotify or YouTube seems nice... Until there is a rights issue or something worse (like an artist being doxed) and the song it's deleted and became lost media. Now I backup everything in a 2x2TB HDD just in case…

That’s what’s sad (imho) with moving away from physical releases. Getting a pressed CD was cheap, even for the most cash strapped band. I could take it home, rip it and have copies on an iPod, a CD-RW for the car, on my computer and media server. Should anything happen, the original disc is right there to rip again. Movies are the same. With the demise of video rental shops, and content going in an out of half a doze…

AFAIK Amazon sells DRM-free MP3s. Apple too.

Re: Hoarding

#68

Post by atoav »

1970-01-01 wrote: post #16
phaedrus wrote: post #13

I grew up in two hoarder houses (parents and grandparents). I disagree with many of the things said in this article. First of all the thing about hoarding being triggered by loss: I think this has more to do with psychoanalysts looking for an explanatory reason of that sort. (I.e. Freudian bullshit.) From my observation it is more of a genetic personality trait that the person has already had the inclination to hoard…

>it's an inability to make decisions. That's it. I would say it's an inability to execute the 'correct' decision society has imposed on them. Hoarders can make decisions just as well as anyone. Their unique problem occurs when it's apparent to everyone but the hoarder that it's time to discard an item. It's always something that has almost zero vale, but never none. The hoarder distorts reality, and imagines a world…

Interesting explaination, for me objects can also hold a negative value, they take up space — both physically and mentally — and it costs energy to maintain them by keeping them clean and keeping an order with the objects around them. And I say that as a person with a ton of stuff.

Some close friends of mine are hoarders and I can't help but feel that hoarders have a hard time valuing themselves or their time as more important as the objects they hold onto and the time/living space it takes to keep them. The ones that I know definitly have a hard time genuinly loving themselves and a lot of what they do (including the hoarding) seems to deal with that in some sense.

Curiously hoarders sometimes have pockets of pristine order, be it some sort of hobby or their linux home folder, while other spaces are in a complete state of disarray.

Re: Hoarding

#69

Post by atoav »

kashunstva wrote: post #53
phaedrus wrote: post #13

I grew up in two hoarder houses (parents and grandparents). I disagree with many of the things said in this article. First of all the thing about hoarding being triggered by loss: I think this has more to do with psychoanalysts looking for an explanatory reason of that sort. (I.e. Freudian bullshit.) From my observation it is more of a genetic personality trait that the person has already had the inclination to hoard…

> Here's the key: it's an inability to make decisions. That’s a very helpful insight; and to take it further I would just note that pathologic doubt, or intolerance of uncertainty is a cardinal feature of obsessive-compulsive disorder. No idea whether it relates to the family members in your story or even to most hoarders, but in some OCD patients, like me, it takes the form of an extreme inability to decide because…

Keeping objects is not free. It takes mental and physical space and needs work to be kept in shape.

So even if you have a hard time to decide, that cost will push you to a decision at some point, because it starts to affect you as a person physically and emotionally (e.g. being annoyed by that box of empty bottles).

Hoarders tend to priorize those objects above themselves and phantasize some time where those objects might become crucial to have. We all to that to some degree, who doesn't have weird chargers for long lost devices in their drawer somewhere? But what differenciates hoarders from people like you and me is that they won't stop keeping things when that drawer is full, when their living room is full, when every last nook and cranny of their flat is used.

I have been to sizeable flats that looked like narrow caves, with the walls obscured by piles of things and stacks of old yellowed newspapers splitting rooms in small paths. Of course keeping such a place clean is more or less impossible, especially if it is being lived in and the safety hazards (fire, collapse of floor, ...) are real.

Re: Hoarding

#70

Post by javchz »

lostmsu wrote: post #67
jonhohle wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s what’s sad (imho) with moving away from physical releases. Getting a pressed CD was cheap, even for the most cash strapped band. I could take it home, rip it and have copies on an iPod, a CD-RW for the car, on my computer and media server. Should anything happen, the original disc is right there to rip again. Movies are the same. With the demise of video rental shops, and content going in an out of half a doze…

AFAIK Amazon sells DRM-free MP3s. Apple too.

That's nice. My favorite front-store to get simple DRM free MP3 files was Bandcamp. But right now, I'm worried by they being adquiered by Epic Games.
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