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Comment by petesergeant | Hacker News Reader

I love getting rid of stuff. I've just packed up my apartment again, and my wife and I have under 5m3 of stuff, and that includes a couple of larger pieces of furniture, 7-8 framed pieces of art, a decently-sized toolbox, and a big TV. Most of the time we're away from our homebase anyway, so living out of two suitcases. It really means that our treasured items are treasured, as most have undergone several iterations of this slimming process.

It's not for everyone, and I'm not trying to make some larger moral point, but for me it always feels so cathartic to strip down the stuff and just be left with items that you actually really like

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There's something very pressing about moves that pares down the true sentimental value of some belonging. If the item survived multiple moves it either concentrated in value or waned in value and will soon have skeptical eyes glancing over its continued presence in one's life.

I can remember photographs or something being held onto that after the 3rd move I just said "it's not worth keeping this thing around" and so it went. But it first traveled through this diminishing trajectory that was interesting to observe this incremental detachment to the object like shedding a skin I had now outgrown.

If you are always travelling then yeah, I guess it makes sense. The problem I have with minimalism is that it also minimises the activities you can do. Any sport and hobby requires stuff, the more stuff you have, the more activities you can do.

Painting, playing music, going swimming, skateboarding, playing tennis, running, picnic/barbecue, hiking etc etc.

If you don't have any stuff, you can't be active. I just get bored to death when the only thing I do in my free time, is looking at things and eating/drinking.

Some hobbies certainly require a lot of gear, but I think it's also possible to massively overdo the stuff-to-fun ratio. We go for four-hour hikes with our trainers, our badminton rackets weigh almost nothing and take up almost no space, and so on.

> If you don't have any stuff, you can't be active

This is simply false. We're currently on a little island and there are boats and stand-up paddle-boards to rent, we have a scooter and helmets we've rented and go for long drives, there are lots of multi-hour walks we've done in our sneakers, lots of scuba and snorkleing optins, there's kilometers and kilometers of beach to walk along. My only concession to this is travelling with a rash-vest for being in the sun, plus most of my shorts are very happy to get wet / be in the water

It also requires exponentially more stuff to be active year around, and adapting to a full time work/weekend schedule, compared to temporarily with a flexible schedule.

Just the beach walk will require a whole wardrobe of suitable clothes and shoes if you want to do it year around and live in a place with seasons. The scooter doesn't work in the winter.

Renting things also requires you to have a flexible schedule and be outside of the normal work week/weekend, because on a sunday when the weather is nice, everyone wants the stand-up paddle board and all the other stuff at the same time, that's the whole point of owning stuff, that it's there for you when you want it. Renting always means you get it when (most) other people don't want it.

It really depends on how much money you have or want to spend. Skiing frequently is way cheaper over time if you own your own gear. Same with climbing, biking, kayaking, surfing, etc.

Some gear you absolutely cannot rent for liability reasons, like most rock climbing gear.

It also depends on how good you get. I’ve been kayaking for 25 years and whatever I can rent down the street is not likely to work for what I typically want to do.

I used to make sure I owned a fairly small volume of stuff. And then I got a kid.

Being an adult for some years now after the changes in childhood and early adulthood surely is interesting with regards to stuff.

As a kid, you outgrow things so quickly that you often pass them along before they break down, or they break faster due to, well, being a kid. It's natural that things come and go quickly. This rhythm is very different in different times of life. I'm not done pondering it yet.

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