You're Boring And You Own Too Much

[nfotxn]

I remember clearly in back in elementary school in Mrs. Effersandies gym class having many day dreams about my life as an adult. I would live in an apartment with well appointed furnishings, own a bulldog and have lots of things I liked. There was no partner in the equation. By age 12 I'd pretty much settled it in my head that my lifestyle was going to be awfully gay. Not that single-dom is really a necessarily gay lifestyle at all. But it is a rather good primer or prelude, don't you think?

Now I don't have those aspirations, I don't think. Well the rod sucking remains but the owning tons of shit and living around that as a central aspiration? Hmmm, not so much. Maybe it's double-speak aesthetic hipster-ism like Adbusters? But I feel like I've OD'ed. I'd rather go camping than own more junk. Write a cute song or plant a garden.

Could just be finding a new muse and tapping into new creative energy. Got a bad case of bloggers block.

Comments

[haenck.livejournal.com]

I'm sort of sick of acquiring things, too.

I do still want a house I guess, but I'm starting to rethink even that. Home ownership is a huge burden in some ways. Although, it would provide lots to do to fill all those hours.

Which brings me to another problem- I need a new hobby. I am greatly afraid that my next hobby will be forced on me in the form of "caring for elderly parents".

[bearringsd.livejournal.com]

Wow, I can so relate. My prospects of the future swing between daydreams of possible hobbies or things to do with my life and solving the "caring for elderly parents" equation. Either way I have no idea.

[fredneckteddy.livejournal.com]

My place is very minimalistic but I know what you mean by gays collecting items throughout their life. When I moved into this apartment I'm in now, I got rid of about 3/4 of my life in garbage LOL I like the minimalist approach to living.......no clutter :)

[chrisglass.livejournal.com]

Sounds like a touch of Hipatitis. Keep rodsucking, it'll go away soon.

and OMG I HEART your new icon!

[nfotxn.livejournal.com]

*sucksuckslurp*

Nope, still a bitch.

[dizzi-d.livejournal.com]

It's from the dust jacket of his new book on modern austerity "Stop Buying Stuff... Except for This Book."

[chrisglass.livejournal.com]

I totally'd buy that.

[sonoranbear.livejournal.com]

That's amazing! Where's the link to the Amazon page?

[thefatrooster.livejournal.com]

I recently saw ReadyMade while I was out acquiring things and thought of you. I wondered if you were building a lawn chair out of found wood so that you could lounge upon it while looking as uncomfortable as the girl in the photo.

[nfotxn.livejournal.com]

Those skid projects totally suck.

[thefatrooster.livejournal.com]

But the picnic carrier was so cute! It looked like a six year-old made it.

[nfotxn.livejournal.com]

The eco-loft in that magazine did make me a bit wet. Although really that couple was just super rich with a thick veneer of environmentalism.

[keanubear.livejournal.com]

When Greg and I moved into out SF pad we threw away 4 truckloads of stuff. I threw out 5 huge boxes of stuff that I had moved from New Jersey and hadn't opened in a year. I figured if I wasn't missing them after a year, fuck it.

It was really liberating.

Of course the music thing does add to possessions, as I could never part with a guitar, bass, ukulele, finger cymbal or vibra slap, or what have you.

The new icon is way cool.

[greatbearmd.livejournal.com]

Why is it that elementary school teachers always seem to have 'elementary school teacher names'?

[jliv.livejournal.com]

Mrs. Effersandies...That is such an elementary school teacher name...But usually it was something like 'Miss Effersandies'...Then they would get married over the summer, and come back as something like 'Mrs. Smith'.

[poohbearjim.livejournal.com]

LOL - my kindergarten teacher, Miss Howlett, came back after winter break as Mrs. Engle.

[nfotxn.livejournal.com]

Interestingly enough the french teacher in 7th grade, Mlle. Giroux, came back Mme. Smith after marrying Mr. Smith... the math teacher.

[jliv.livejournal.com]

I had one of those "I have too much fucking shit" moments over the weekend...I was in a hip furniture store and a chair I had been eyeing for a few months was 50% off...I couldn't get it, because I have nowhere to put the damn thing!

[gusmacroy.livejournal.com]

God! I'm glad I didn't post about my new U2 120GB iPod Photo Colour! Would I have looked dumb.

[foodpoisoningsf.livejournal.com]

The need for ownership waxes and wanes, and it's so easy- almost anything is available 24/7.

The need for rod-sucking (and polishing) doesn't really go away, and can sometimes be elusive.

[dirtyglamour.livejournal.com]

I'm often guilty of owning too little. But that's my religious "suffer needlessly as much as possible" upbringing. There's a balance there somewhere I hope.

[aj-word.livejournal.com]

Yeah, when I was a kid I thought I would have been this incredible designer (of anything) with like the most fashionable corner studio/office living a very quitly higher income life.

At 26- poor, no office/studio and I'm still waiting to be a designer (even after graduating From Parson's school of design)I know I made a wroung turn somewhere, I just got to figure out how to get back on the road and off this dirt one!!

[bookbear.livejournal.com]

I lvoe throwing out stuff whenever I move. Sure wish I could get the hubby to do the same.

And...my goddess is that an attractive icon!

Write a cute song or plant a garden...

[indeterminacy.livejournal.com]

or make a macrame owl.

http://www.billdavenport.com/owls/owls1.html

[backrubbear.livejournal.com]

Aside from the detritus one collects over the course of their life, some of us have habits that are hard to dump. I collect information. I've moved almost 1.5 cubic yards of books over the dizzibear's place. It'll be 2 when I'm done. The dead trees don't mean anything beyond a physically conveninet method of information access (I'm spatially oriented for information retrieval). The whole thing would easily collapse into a small amount of space on a hard drive.

Most of my old computer stuff can be similarly thrown out. I don't want the computers. I don't want the media or drives. I want access to the information. The desire for multiple displays is often there, but that's often for the same reason that I'll have several books poured out over the floor while working on a project: accessibility.

If it didn't suck so much to read stuff off a monitor, I could reduce probably 50%+ of my property down to a large hard drive of bits, a few cpus and some convenient displays.

The remainder of my crap is often easily discarded. We grow out of our desires for certain kinds of clothes, or simply grow out of them. Old devices trend towards obsolete by functioning less and less well but are never discarded because they do the job.

Repair talisman haunt many of our lives. How many things do you own because you may need another one to help repair something that's likely to break down? Random screws, bolts, pins? What about things you use to work with other things - your tools? They take up a lot of space and you miss them only when you don't have them.

When many of us look at a new home or a new place that is empty, we see it as a blank slate to be filling. We look to leave our mark on a place. The place that is too empty feels stark and lifeless. Yet, like art, "empty" is in the eye of the beholder.

At what point do we simplify our lives by discarding things at the cost of the convenience and comfort they give us? At whwt point do we avoid picking up something to give us that convenience and comfort to avoid the extra crap?

[abearius.livejournal.com]

Jeez, Brodie. This is kinda tame. Not nearly as good as the time you got 200+ comments for saying that musclebears are assholes.

[nfotxn.livejournal.com]

I totally watered it down. I don't have time to respond to the throngs of easily offended who don't challenge themselves let alone accept it from others.

[beingmee67.livejournal.com]

Damn! I missed the "musclebears are assholes" post. Pity...

The "tons of shit" here translates into a few thousand of movies. I collect them. And I still wonder what happens if I die. Or even who dies first! Then, I imagine watching them one by one for a last time before destroying them or giving them to friends. But it would take so much time to view them again. All of them! And the scenario of giving a proper burial to DVD's (or any other previously popular format) sounds a little obscure...

Life is surreal, huh?

[fao.livejournal.com]

But you know... is better to be alone than have bad company.

Good luck founding a furry muse! ;)

[poohbearjim.livejournal.com]

My hubby keeps SAYING he's going to throw everything out when it's time to move again. I'll be interested to see if he keeps to his guns when August rolls around.

[andywhobear.livejournal.com]

I first started to get rid of things I thought were unnecessary after spending time with a friend in Chicago who lived the philosophy "live simply so that others may simply live" I got rid of my 4x4, purchased a smaller car, donated boxes of stuff to resale shops etc. I went through another phase when the record store I was managing went out of business. I slimmed down my CD collection to about 1500 from about 4000. But that was mostly to supplement my unemployment.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that what we think of as important to us usually changes over time.