Too Much Stuff

When all of your belongings are in closets, tucked away on shelves, or in cabinets, it's hard to assess how much stuff you actually have. When you have to pack everything into boxes, however, you suddenly realize that you've been accumulating stuff without even realizing it. I moved about a month and a half ago. Once again, I was surprised at how many boxes were required to do the job. And I was actively trying to get rid of stuff, for many reasons. First, all of my previous moves in California were into successively bigger apartments, and as everyone knows, the more space you have, the more space you use. My latest move was a lateral one. The square footage of the old and new apartments ended up being about the same, although the rooms are different sizes. I needed to get rid of some furniture that just wouldn't work in the new place. Second, I started to question just what I needed to own, and what I could do without.

I thinned out my book collection and donated the music books to my school library. I gave the rest to Goodwill. I thinned out my CD collection, trading about 150 in at Amoeba. I recycled old magazines, and finally donated of the clothes I never wear anymore. It was such a great experience to feel that I was freeing myself of these possessions, but that they were perhaps going to help other people. (They also weren't going to end up in a landfill.) Maybe some young woman with a job interview will find that cute purple suit at Goodwill. Maybe some student at LACC will take one of those donated books out of the library and decide they want to study Music History. It could happen!

The most unexpected thing about doing all this donating was a shift in my own perspective about buying new things. There are a couple of things I've been buying used for years. If I'm buying a CD (and not downloading from iTunes), I go to Amoeba first. If I want to buy a book, I buy used from alibris and private sellers on Amazon and Barnes and Noble. But I'm trying not to buy books at all. I already have too many. Don't get me wrong, I love books. I love them so much, but that doesn't mean that I have to have a library full of books in my living room--we actually have libraries to keep books for us. Books are heavy and hard to move. And even thinning out my collection to just the books I think I need (for research and program notes) and my favorites, I still have 2 and a half big bookcases full! I also don't feel I need a physical CD of music unless it has special artwork or something unique.

I used to buy all of my electronics new, but when I needed to replace a camera, the internet made it easy to find a good used camera for a fraction I would have paid for a new one. But it's not so much that price is an issue, although it's wonderful to save money, it's the idea that I'm using something that's already out there. In my humble opinion, there's just too much stuff out there already. I have too much stuff, you probably have too much stuff. And for what? What do we need it all for?

I'm getting to the place where I can justify my ownership of the things I have. I need these books for research, for example. Or I keep only the clothes I wear frequently. But I think I still have too much. I know I'm going to move a few more times before I settle some place I'm going to stay. But also, even if I move into a big house ten years from now, will I really need to fill it with crap? Even if I live to be a hundred, someone's going to have to figure out what to do with my stuff after I die. I want that to be an easy job.

There are two more issues that I need to weigh in on. One is the idea that we're moving towards a Cloud-based information system. In a Cloud-based system, all of your information lives "on a cloud" that you can then access. All of your documents and pictures and music won't sit on your hard drive anymore or on paper in file cabinets. They'll be accessible from anywhere. I like this idea, but I'm wary about Cloud security, although I'm all for keeping digital versions of things rather than cluttering things up with paper versions. Less clutter is a wonderful thing.

Second, if I ever decide to have a kid, all bets are off. Kids need a lot of stuff. I can be positively austere, but I'm not going to limit a child to two bibs and three toys. As the kid grows up, we can donate the toys she doesn't play with (okay, she can keep some special favorites). We can give away the clothes that he has outgrown. Maybe I will raise a child who doesn't feel like she needs to own a lot of things. And when I die, she'll keep a few of my treasured possessions and give the rest away. The most important things I would want to leave a kid are good memories and good lessons from me. And maybe my Harry Potter books.