ice water and ocicats

Today's Wondermark amuses me because I'm totally that guy in the last panel.



When something ends for me, I'm generally pretty quick to expunge mementos of it from my daily life. I get the idea that someday I'll want to look back on things; I keep digital photos (but not on my phone), and I've got a thick paper folder called "Memories" where things sometimes go that I can't stand to look at but will want to someday.

But shit does not stay around the house. I usually do that sort of removal as part of dealing with the change, while it's still fresh in my mind... so I don't see it as cold and unemotional. I'm just trying to give my future self a chance to live in her world instead of in mine.

I may have bought a pair of unnecessary earrings yesterday.

However, in the last week or so I've gotten rid of: a smartphone, two hardcover books, a graphic novel, a calendar, some unloved bras, a ficus tree (just today!) and all my cross-stitching stuff. Some twinge on that last one -- but it turns out I haven't done any cross-stitch for about eight years.

No more watering the tree, sweeping up its leaves, trying to get Hobbes to stop eating said leaves or cleaning up after he throws up a leaf. Hmmmm. I wonder how much time I just reclaimed?

This is how I keep myself honest about shirts. Every time I do laundry the clean shirts go in the closet on the left. Every morning I start scanning from the right until I encounter something I feel like wearing. Once a month I move a plastic ring into place.



If something doesn't get worn for 3 months, and it's not wildly out of season, it means I already chose not to wear it 90+ times. Time to say goodbye, perhaps.

(I wrote the above last night and then fell crash asleep on the couch at 8PM. What?)

Feeling tired and maybe getting-a-cold, so I thought I'd play hooky tonight... you know, skip yoga and curl up on the couch with hot chocolate and the laptop. It's always hard to know when I'm being lazy and when I'm legitimately taking care of myself, but in the context of the last week I'm okay with either. Anyway, of course one of the cats smeared poop across the floor. Cleaning it up wasn't as bad as those few minutes of looking for the poop, knowing it was somewhere and hoping I hadn't already stepped on it.

Anyway, now for a note on minimalism. One of my newer friends, I think jupiterjuniper, asked people what was the one most influential idea of 2010 for them. Of course I said minimalism. :-) This April that's practically all I posted about.

So where does it stand now? I got rid of around half my stuff in the spring. In the summer I read a shelf-ful of all the books I hadn't read but had always meant to get around to, a project it was easy to feel great about and helped reduced the mental load of looking at the bookshelf thinking "oh yeah, that". This fall I got a new computer and recycled the old, which was a sort of scary project for me since I'd been set up on my old computer for so long. It involved a spreadsheet of what software I had, and what files were backed up, and then finally the clean sweep. A lot of digital clutter went out with that change -- though I don't know exactly what, I do feel very clean and minimal about the new computer. It helps to actually have a list of what I have on it.

Reading that, I see I haven't stopped paring down, but only slowed after the initial phase. That makes me happy.

In contrast to some, I haven't found it harder to stay in the minimal mindset than to get there. A simple "one in / one out" policy is enough to maintain my current level, and it's not hard anymore since I'm only doing one or two things at a time now. (Case study: I got my copy of Adobe Photoshop Elements 9.0 in the mail last week. As it was installing I offered up my old Adobe Photoshop Elements 4.0 on freecycle; the next morning it was gone. Not so bad, right?)

I like having less of my caring and emotion so tied up with material possessions, but I like it just as much that the stuff I do have actually reflects me and my current life. For me it's all part of the same thing, a sort of integrity in terms of what I own... but that sounds so pompous I'd rather just say "minimalism". :-)

For my next trick, I think I'm moving to a much larger space where we'll wind up with some new furniture. Not a traditionally minimalist move. It will be nice to have... not more stuff... but more space. We'll see how the rest goes; I'm hoping not to get too identified with the new things. Sometimes a table is just a table.

The single most interesting thing about minimalism, for me, is how QUICK people have been to assign me the label, even before I've decided whether I'm comfortable with it myself. When bluechromis was over last, she said "It's funny to watch a minimalist and a packrat fighting it out." When islenskr posted about not coveting possessions, she titled it "Hey, flexagon...". In a way, people's quickness to say "yes, you are this thing" makes me think there is something about it that suits me.

Today we each took a backpack-load of paint thinners, ammonia, non-latex paint and other evil stuff to the Department of Public Works, and then I took another load of my personal things to Goodwill, but those things aren't the point. The point is that with everything that leaves, the things that stay are thrown into sharper relief.

It's also a way of becoming more comfortable in my own house. I used to be afraid to go into the garage and now I'm not. I know exactly what's out there, and any spiderwebs will be easily visible. I know what is (well, was) in my junk drawers and my closet. There are still places where strange things might be hiding (some papers waiting their turn to be filed; those shoeboxes full of tights and socks; that one drawer in the bedroom) but those islands are shrinking.

Also, you know how stuff gets shabby sometimes? You think of upgrading it (fixing, oiling, sewing, replacing, painting, buying that new part), but oh god, if you did that then you should take similar care of the several other things in that category... and just throw out that one that's beyond saving... and while you're there then maybe you should reorganize that whole corner, which has been in need of paint for forever, and oh forget it.

Well, because my list of physical items no longer seems infinite, neither does that chore list, anymore. As an example, right now I have one pair of high heeled sandals, and they're in need of shoe glue because their foot lining is peeling up. I'm going to glue them, wear them and see if I still like them. It's not a big deal, and that'll be it for the whole category! Then the category will expand because my order from crocs.com will arrive. Yes, I like every minimalism post to contain an acquisitive, consumerist note, just for aesthetic contrast.

I love how renovations and new cabinets feel like exciting consumption but stay with the house. It's like some awesome wormhole in the usual curves of thing-ownership, by which you can spend thousands of dollars on new shiny things and still not own any more than you did when you started. :-)

Coveting possessions is unhealthy. Here's how I look at it:

All of the computers on Ebay are mine. In fact, everything on Ebay is already mine. All of those things are just in long term storage that I pay nothing for. Storage is free.

When I want to take something out of storage, I just pay the for the storage costs for that particular thing up to that point, plus a nominal shipping fee, and my things are delivered to me so I can use them. When I am done with them, I return them to storage via Craigslist or Ebay, and I am given a fee as compensation for freeing up the storage facilities resources.

This is also the case with all of my stuff that Amazon and Walmart are holding for me. I have antiques, priceless art, cars, estates, and jewels beyond the dreams of avarice.

The world is my museum, displaying my collections on loan. The James Savages of the world are merely curators.

As I am the curator of their things, and thus together we all share the world.

The above was a comment by Pastabagel on metafilter, in response to a post about a guy with 150 computers. Wisdom shows up in the most unlikely places! Now, could I quibble with the above? Of course. Consider maintenance, for instance, which is not free even if storage is. And consider the things that one may not buy, because they are out of print or beyond one's net worth. Think what if everyone thought this way... would industry collapse? And then stop overanalyzing already, and read it again: the apparently carbo-loaded Pastabagel has made a rather wonderful point about access versus ownership, and which one really matters. Thanks to islenskr for the link to the link to the link. :-)