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I think it's fascinating how hard it is to let stuff go. There are so many thoughts blocking one from getting rid of something: this object has sentimental value; somebody gave it to me; it might come in useful someday; I regret buying it but it will really feel like a waste of money if I get rid of it, etc... I still don't know how to conquer all of those. Sometimes I think I just need a bigger place, but if those hoarder reality shows have one lesson it's that more space is never the answer.
In this case you were glad to have an excuse to get rid of the comforter: something beyond your control relieved you of culpability. Of course I've had that experience before--probably everyone has. Why can't we take responsibility for the choice of whether to keep something or not? I think a good test is to ask oneself "would I buy this today if I saw it?" If the answer is no then you should probably let it go. Time will claim all things. Is it really your duty to see an object to its grave just because it fell into your possession?
My mom had her mom die and had to sort through all her possessions. I understand it was kind of torturous. Every object potentially has sentimental value, from a wind chime to a couch to a coaster to a picture frame.. In the end only a tiny fraction of objects--the very best of the best--made the cut. If that's what will eventually happen to your stuff then why keep anything less than the best, unless it is expressly useful or fits your aesthetic? Another interesting thought experiment would be to think "if I died, how would my loved ones know what was really important to me?" As I write this I'm looking over at my bookshelf. If I died I'd want my family to know something about me by looking through those books, but as it stands now there are books in there that I've lugged with me through five apartments and never even read more than a few chapters.Comment
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Conversations about "stuff" always remind me of The Honeymooners, a TV show from 1955 that was frequently on when I was young. The apartment in the show really made an impression on me because of how empty it looked.
It was such a contrast to the homes I grew up in, which were always cluttered (neat, but there was a lot of stuff). It looked terribly boring, especially to a kid. There was nothing to do because there was no stuff to do it with.
I think the big change between 1955 and later was that starting in the 1960s we were living in the plastic age (which we are still in). It's hard to overstate the impact plastic has had on everyday life, to the point where it's hard to imagine how people lived without it. The food I buy comes wrapped in plastic; the glass I drink out of is not glass, it's plastic; the keyboard I am typing this on, and the bezel of the monitor I am seeing this on, plastic. My pill bottles, blu-ray cases and the TV frame itself, the blu-ray player - plastic. My birds' food is kept in a plastic ziplock bag. The macadamia nuts over there on the bookcase - in a plastic container. My car is largely plastic. The plant water sprayer - plastic, as are the plant pots. Cords of all kinds, from mouse cords to electric wires - we call them "rubber" but really they are soft plastic. Nylon is a plastic. So is the PVC used in our plumbing. It's endless. It's hard to comprehend that plastic appeared in living memory for some people, who remember life before it.
Plastic allowed for really cheap mass production of "stuff" from kids' toys on up. Plastic begets more plastic; the cheap plastic "110" camera took photography from something you posed for with a professional photographer, for your wedding or a child's baptism or graduation, to something you did all the time, but especially on vacations and birthdays. People began to accumulate piles, then albums, of photos of every possible occasion. On a trip? Take lots of pictures, some of them are sure to come out. Then you get home and get them developed. Oh here are the Stonehenge pictures - well this one is a little blurry but everyone is in it. That one is sharper but so and so is partially cut off on the edge of the picture. This one has no other tourists in it. The attempt to pick the "best" one is exhausting, so you end up keeping them all.
I bring up photos in particular because personal photos of an event are irreplaceable. They are not necessarily valuable, but if you throw them out, you can't go back in time and take the photo again. I think this perception that something is irreplaceable - this was my grandmother's sea chest, that was my mother's Christmas ornament, this is a photo of me when I graduated, that is a movie poster from when Star Wars showed in the local theater for the first time - makes us tend to hang on to stuff even if we are unlikely to ever use it or even look at it and reminisce about whatever it is supposed to commemorate. We've all had the experience of getting rid of something and then wishing later we had it back - well for irreplaceable items it's even worse so we don't want to risk it.
Plastic made it possible for there to be gigantic amounts of affordable "stuff" to collect. Statues, miniatures, little planes and ships and spaceships, dinosaurs, animals, army men, CD's, DVD's, blu-rays, vinyl records, audio cassettes and VHS tapes, bobbleheads and Funko Pops, little memorabilia doodads from tourist shops in places we've been to.
I think in the past things were much more expensive and harder to come by and so people learned to treasure them. A child might get one wooden toy for Christmas and that was their toy for the year, except maybe for a metal soldier for their birthday. Plastic has made us "richer" now by making "stuff" a lot cheaper. And we are drowning in it because our instinct is to hang onto everything.
That said, in recent years I have noticed two countervailing trends.
One is the Millennial digital-native who streams everything. They don't collect physical stuff. Their movies and TV shows, music, computer games - all are in the cloud. Their books are e-books to be read on a Kindle. They stream or install from Steam as needed. A physical media collection to them seems grotesquely cumbersome. They prize experience over things, but this is partly due to the fact that many of their "things" are stored remotely so the physical storage is not in their home - so they don't think of such digital assets as "things" but rather media to be experienced. If you don't have a big collection of physical stuff to begin with, it's probably easier to resist the temptation to get things like Funko Pops because they would be obvious clutter in an otherwise Spartan home environment.
The other is the "minimalist" fashion that began sometime in the last decade. As others have pointed out, this is really a philosophy of the wealthy - people who can afford to not keep stuff around because if they need something they just buy it - again and again if necessary. Haven't used this spatula in the past year? Throw it out. Need a spatula? Just buy a new one. This is nice if you have unlimited money, but for most people, it is extraordinarily wasteful. Having useful stuff is thrift - as long as you actually are likely to actually use it someday. That last part is where many of us overestimate the likelihood of using it - hoarders, catastrophically so.
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You would be correct
2 movies 1982 and 2010. The shoop is from the 2010 movie.
It'll be 3 now.
https://forums.lazytown.eu/forum/the...neon-stephanieComment
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Magnรบs: - I have fans of all ages and I don't think it's weird when older people like LazyTown. LazyTown appeals to people for many different reasons: dancing, acrobatics, etc.Comment
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Oh brother, they've gone and cloned the Dire Wolf.
Reminds me of that quote from Jurassic Park: โyour scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn't stop to think if they should.โ
https://time.com/7275439/science-beh...e-wolf-return/Nature gave the world the dire wolf 2.6 million years ago, and then, through the hard hand of extinction, took it awayโsome 10,000 to 13,000 years ago when the last of the species died out. Now, the dire wolf is back, brought bounding into the 21st century by Colossal Biosciences, a Dallas-based biotech company. On April 8, Colossal announced it had used both cloning and gene-editing based on two ancient samples of dire wolf DNA to birth three pups, the six-month-old males Romulus and Remus and the two-month-old female Khaleesi.
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Wargs appear
And scientists with high Intelligence but low Wisdom. Lot of that going around these days.l i t t l es t e p h e r sComment
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Here's another about to be classic story
Wait until those dang aliens get a load of this dog
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Speaking of Right to Repair. A recent example of an an issue. Start at 1:12
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chuft I always thought it was lack of sleep but it's just the way his skin color is. In his own words from someone asking that very question a few years ago: larossmann - "born ugly, can't fix that"Comment
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I don't think lack of sleep causes dark circles above your eyes, just under them.
He looks like Pris after she spray painted herself.
l i t t l es t e p h e r sComment
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Came across this one and watched about Syd Barrett yesterday. It's two parts.
A young generation take
Part 1
Part 2
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