Lightweight Living (1999)

Everybody on this site is always attacking stuff. I'd like to write in defence of stuff.

Stuff is awesome. Four years ago when I moved to the US I went from the situation of having an apartment full of stuff to having two suitcases full of stuff. I acquired an apartment where the old tenants were happy to leave behind a crummy couch and a mattress on the floor, did a quick run to Walmart to pick up a minimalist set of kitchenware and bedding, bought a bike to get around town, and I was pretty much in the supposedly-blessed state of having the mininal possible amount of stuff.

It wasn't that great. It was just limiting and depressing.

Four years of stuff-acquisition later I now have just about the right amount of stuff. Some stuff (like half the stuff in my kitchen) I seldom use, but it's there in case I need it. Other stuff is completely useless, but I like having it around because it looks nice. I own four frypans, which is probably at least twice as many as I need, but y'know what? Contrary to what you read in many of these articles, having the extra two frypans doesn't cause me any distress.

So while I'd never advocate anyone buying stuff just for the sake of buying stuff, nor buying stuff that they can't afford, I really don't see any problem with having some stuff, nor any great advantage to getting rid of stuff. Three cheers for stuff, and its nonzero ability to enhance your life!

We've come oddly full circle over the course of the industrial revolution. Once upon a time no human owned more than they (or their mule/ox/wife) could carry, as by necessity we were nomadic. Agriculture caused us to settle, industrialisation brought us to cities, and with a few notable exceptions, all our lifestyles adapted to suit 'settledness'. Now, as we're moving into the post-industrial age, a return to mobility seems to make more sense, and with it new attitudes and beliefs about property.

Steve Roberts ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tDaz8vaKzdQ ) is a bit of a hero of mine and I think the first person to really figure out the physical implications of internetworking for the knowledge worker. Steve took his first voyage a few years before I was born, but in that short time we've seen unbelievable changes in society, the economy and of course technology.

I struggle to think of somebody I know personally who couldn't do their job from anywhere in the world, if only they had the courage to demand it. The whole economy seems to be disappearing into the ether and the workforce seems to be slowly following, albeit largely via Bangalore and Beijing. Perhaps most extraordinary is the technological change. I recently built a modern version of Steve's Winnebiko, but I quickly realised that it was a largely pointless task - twenty-odd years of miniaturisation and a whole heap of bandwidth have shrunk almost all of his 125kg trailer rig into an ordinary smartphone. I still get a little thrill every morning at the marvel of technology that lives in my left pocket. Every record, every book, every photograph, a telephone, a camera, a television and much more besides in what previous generations might have described as "something no bigger than a pack of cigarettes".

It is so easy to forget that we already live in the future.

Bruce Sterling wrote about simplifying possessions a couple years ago on signaling the end of Viridian Design.

Basically useful, sentimental and beautiful things make the cut. Everything else goes.

His unique recommendation was to photograph and meticulously document everything you got rid of and generate a database of your former possessions. Quite useful if you find yourself missing it in the future, and a pretty cool personal history project to boot!

The essay is on the main page: http://www.viridiandesign.org/

It's like the feeling you get when you delete stuff off your hard drive, except now you're deleting real things.

Twice since 2008 I've left one state for another with all my possessions crammed into my Honda Civic. It's liberating in a way that's hard to explain to someone who doesn't already understand the feeling. I learned what I really valued (apparently some books, my computers and gadgets, and old letters and other mementos). And a car is large enough that there was still plenty of room for junk I didn't need.

Lightweight living, a minimalist lifestyle, or whatever you want to call it represents maximum freedom for some people. If you come across adventure or you decide you want to move, you can do whatever you want at the drop of a hat.

I'd say it's best suited to people who don't have a family, sedentary lifestyle, or hobbies that require a lot of stuff.

In late 2007, I got rid of my place and everything I owned to travel indefinitely with only a laptop, HD cam, four shirts, a pair of pants, and two pair of underwear/socks. My worldly possessions weighed 14 lbs and occupied a backpack smaller than the L.L. Bean that hauled my books in high school.

Over the course of the preceding 6 months, I'd realized I never actually used my kitchen, living room, couch, TV, or pretty much anything else in my place. I would get home, play guitar and drums, use my computer, sleep, and leave.

So I got rid of it all, and the feeling was one of total liberation. I haven't looked back, and after 3 years (including a move to SF), I've added a small acoustic guitar and shed the HD cam.

I also realized that an apartment is mostly wasted space for someone who spends most of his time outside and around town, so I got rid of that too and sleep in my car.

Long story short, I've found getting rid of excess to be liberating, productive, and addictive. Highly recommended.

I am personally obsessed with lists, rankings and statistics in general so I do not know how universal my desires are... but:

Try making a weighted list of your dearest possessions. In as much depth as possible to its dearest extent. Not the "true wealth" things such as love, family, friends et cetera, but instead your physical objects like laptop or favorite books.

I found that the objects low on the list I didn't care so much about and did not use too often. It was easy to get rid of them then. Putting on paper what my unconscious already valued made this process much more comprehensible and satisfactory to me.

I find that the more I eliminate in excess the more I can love the things that I do care about. Maybe that is true for you as well.

The best kind of move is when you can keep your old apartment for a while.

You just relocate stuff on a when-needed basis and eventually the old apartment is full of crap you haven't missed once.

Figuring out what to keep and what to give away is an easy problem at that point.

I moved to Europe for a two year post-doc with nothing but a suitcase. I left absolutely everything behind --- people included. I learned things about myself and the world that I could never have imagined.

That said, I should have at least brought a damned book.

I just got back from 7 months backpacking from Peru to Panama. Sometime while I was away, my storage locker was broken into back home.

My whole life is in that locker, yet when I sat down to think of what might have been stolen it occurred to me that there was absolutely nothing in there that I'd really miss if it were gone. Maybe a couple old photo albums, but that's about it.

Turns out, the burglars came to the same conclusion. Evidently nothing I own looks particularly valuable to anybody else either. Anybody want a bunch of my old useless stuff?

Oh, and as to Pack Weight, it goes for traveling too. I carry exactly one complete change of clothes on the road, along with a few books and a laptop. At one point on this trip I wore the same shirt 40 days in a row (washing it and putting it back on every couple days), until it degraded to the point where I wore it shirt shopping and tossed it in the garbage can next to the fitting room.

Much like the author, I get a bit of a chuckle watching the first-timers hauling expedition packs on their backs and "daypacks" larger than my main one on their front. They're learning their lesson for next time.

The annoying thing about stuff is that there is that tool or that nick nack that you might use 5 times a year. You really really need it, and don't want to buy it and dispose of it and waste the time of going to the store to find it, so you just keep it in some box for when you do need it. It's usually not big enough to rent or to deal with the hassle of renting so it can get pretty irritating.

My wife and I are selling pretty much everything we own: our house, our car, most of our furniture, etc.

It feels scary and liberating at the same time.

I don't think I'll ever get to this point, but I'm slowly working my way up. Sold a few computers, excessive speakers, and more a few weeks ago to finish paying off my collegiate credit card debt. It's unbelievably liberating.

I just wrote about doing this myself recently, actually... getting rid of stuff feels good.

Oh, and the obligatory pg: http://www.paulgraham.com/stuff.html

Tip: pack up all your stuff and move somewhere smaller. In the new place, unpack as you need/want things. In 2 months, throw out all the boxes left over.

related story: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1140670

In the article, the writer mentioned a Russian who went around buying typewriters, stereos, and all sort of car parts. He couldn't believed that these things were so cheap but he brought it anyway. In Russia, every one of these part are extremely valuable. All of which are simply junk to the author. So the Russian guy didn't quite adjust his value system yet.

Now, the author himself is faced with the fact that he is doing the same thing as the Russian guy did years ago. A whole lot of things are completely digitalized, such as video, musics, scholarly journals, and all these thing. He throw 200 pounds worth of information into the dumpster as soon as he realize that there are no more values in such papers, which are already digitalized.

Nothing beats the feeling of a good "format c:"

We learned just about the same lesson (maybe not so far as ditching the insurance...) while backpacking the globe a year ago. Amazing the kind of junk we've shed that used to be 'important' or 'valuable.'

Yeah, I don't get the point of cancelling the insurance. Selling the house and buying a smaller one would be a better idea.

Insurance doesn't buy stuff, it buys not having to worry and plan.

It sounds good and feels good to get rid of all useful rarely used things that clutter our minds as much as they do our homes.

Its unfortunate that our government is so committed to consumption and has geared so much of our economy and infrastructure, at great expense and much debt, to supporting a complex existence, often at great cost to those who swim against the tide. Why is it that we cannot let life develop in its own direction?

that is very enlightening but unfortunate

It's difficult to simplify past a certain point. I want to reduce more, but I'm at the point where I have:

1: Some clothes

2: Tools

3: Key things (laptop, vehicle, phone)

4: Books

5: Food and some dishes

I know tools and books are the next in line, but I value books highly and tools just as much. I haven't got a tool I don't absolutely require at least occasionally.

I posted a comment on a similar article recently (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1332845)

Am I the only one reading these comments that appreciates the need for some people to settle down given that our current "nomadic" lifestyle is heavily dependent on farms?

Last time I checked, none of these people were hunting and gathering with their 14 pound packs. In fact, I would argue that were they to start deriving all their food from hunting and gathering, their packs would increase in weight by approximately one spear and probably a decent bow and arrow. A gun, would of course, require people to work in a factory to manufacture it, so that's out.

There seems to be a general ignorance amongst many people these days that almost everything humans have accomplished started with domestication of plants and animals. And a core element of domestication is a sedentary lifestyle.