Freedom From Self

Have you ever given up all your stuff? What's it like? My mom was/is a hoarder, though not quite to the sad-enough-for-TV extreme, and I always swore I would never be like that, and by and large I've managed to avoid it, but my life is still full of stuff and I feel the weight of it digging deeper into my shoulders all the time.

My car needs tools, my kitchen needs cutlery; gotta have a closet full of cleaning supplies of course, and then there's all the computer shit I have. Some people just have a laptop on their desk, I have enough computer stuff that closets are literally filled with PCBs, cables and copper blocks.

The kitchen and cleaning stuff doesn't really bother me, I mean that's stuff I need and use constantly. What bothers me is a lot of the car and computer stuff. There's so much there I don't really need but it's stuff I've done as a hobby so there's so much equipment left that represents unfinished or unstarted projects.

In a different life or a different time I would have finished all those projects but the more of them that I do get around to finishing, the more I wonder if it was worth all that effort invested in some project that then has to be maintained. Worst of all, finishing projects makes it even harder to think about liquidating that stuff down the line because so much blood, sweat and tears have gone into creating something unique, something of which no replica exists anywhere else in this crazy world.

It's really a shame but I've been dragging on for a while and finally I really get that there's no reconciling possession of stuff with the freedom from stuff that I strongly desire. So this spring I am going to finally start on something I should have started years ago. I am going to liquidate my stuff down to the absolute bare minimum, and when I am left with only what I need to work and a bowl to eat from and a bed to sleep in and a pot to piss in... then maybe I will finally have that taste of freedom I've been thirsting for.

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ha, ive never had the luxury of giving up my stuff; prefer enough room for a guitar and accessories but fine without it.

The list of my stuff (not kidding)
- tablet and kindle paperwhite
- medium hamper size amount of clothes
- a 15+ year old guitar that is worth about $5
- a bed!!!
- backpack for my stuff
- misc. stuff that i would toss if i moved

and for what its worth i don't even use drugs!!

 

The word "hoarder" is being abused in popular culture. Nowadays, anybody with a couple of hobbies and the tools and accessories to maintain that hobby is branded hoarder.

My parents were real hoarders. We lived in a hovel that was piled floor to ceiling with rotting garbage, rags, broken toasters, dead televisions, space heaters that didnt work, newpapers, junk mail, rotting beer cans, mumified rats, 15 cats that pissed and shit everywhere, etc etc etc etc. To get from room to room, you had to squeeze and climb narrow passage had been dug into the piles of rubbish. That's hoarding.

Having a collection of vintage video games or garage tools to repair a car is not hoarding. If clutter starts to build up, there is no shame in putting it into storage. If it is valuable, it is cheaper and much more convenient to store it out of the way than to sell it and buy it again every 2 years (which would be the case with many tools and hobbies) when you need it again.

I gave up most of my stuff when I went off the grid 4 years ago. Today, I only have what I can carry by hand in 3 trips: bike, laptop, clothes, books, etc. Most of what I kept went into storage in a remote part of Idaho. Having it versus not having it doesn't feel any different, except it is annoying to have to buy something that I know I still have in storage.

 

Cheers for your thoughts guys. Socko, i recall you mentioning that hoarding situation before. It reminds me of some horror stories i've heard from technicians who make house calls. I didn't mean to imply i keep any clutter, very little of my stuff is really superfluous but it still feels excessive. Not counting the stuff in long-term storage, everything I have now (including bed and box spring) fills up a cargo van. It doesn't take up much space overall but having stuff means tending for stuff, it's all just an enormous timesink stealing focus away from living life.

 

As a mom of three or four kids depending on various definitions (I sorta feel like a mom of about thirty kids, frankly), I often fantasize about the day when the last one leaves the nest...I'll pack whatever fits on my back and I will fuck off to places even I haven't heard of and send postcards from locations unpronounceable. I want photographs and memories and stories: hysterical, terrifying, ridiculous, unbelievable. I have a good collection of them now and those are my favorite parts of me, not my (ahem) massive book and DVD collection or my Imelda Marcos-esque collection of fabulous shoes...all of that could burn in a fire. I'd run in the house to save (assuming the kids were out already) my kitties and my photos (I think that really means my laptop, but I do have a bag of old pictures...).