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Journal rdewald's Journal: 600 things 32

Journal by rdewald

I am going to undertake a major life project today. I expect to have it completed by the end of the summer. The goal is simple: I am going to discard/donate/sell-off my possessions until there are only six hundred of them. This, of course, implies that I will be making an inventory (at the end). I plan to exempt consumable items like food, toilet paper, toothpaste, soap, etc, but a fork will be an item just like my air conditioner. I have yet to make decisions like whether my right stereo speaker and the wire that connects it to my receiver consitutes one or two items, but I will.

Why? Affluenza. Consumerism. I want to free the world of it.

I have been reading a fascinating collection of essays entitled Hooked: Buddhist Writings on Greed, Desire, and the Urge to Consume. ISBN: 1-59030-172-2. One of the essayists describes a friend of who is the CEO of an investment bank who conducted this exercise in his own life, that is, he reduced and inventoried his personal possessions until they were limited to 600 items. The essayist describes his friend's midtown apartment as elegant and calm, it being clear that every single item in the household has a purpose and is valued and cared for.

That hit me like the proverbial brick to the head. I look around my place and mostly what I see are things that I haven't even handled in years beyond running a duster over them. I don't want them, I notice I resent my (contrived and internally manufactured) obligation to manage them.

The essayist furhter goes on to relate that his friend must very carefully consider every new acquistion of a material item because in order to take posssession of it he has to choose something else to discard/donate/sell. That's the kind of mindful life that I endeavor to lead.

I noticed the other day when I was washing my dishes I have 31 forks. I don't think I have ever purchased a single fork in my entire life. I have acquired all of these forks by inheriting them from deceased family members or roommates who moved out without taking them.

What does owning 31 forks do for me? It allows me to pile up dishes in the sink rather than washing them as I use them. I do occasionally have dinner guests, but never more than three at a time. Therefore, I have 27 extra forks. I don't have enough room in the slot in my flatware container for all the forks, they always spill over to the spoon slot or the knife spot. This is mindlessness.

I still have seven one-gallon paint cans in my utility closet left over from the housepainting I did in 2003. I have been housing this fire and chemical contamination hazard for three years now for no reason other than mindlessness. I have a Trinitron computer monitor sitting on the floor next to my desk which I will never use again. I have four non-working lamps. I live in a neatly stacked, dusted, dumpster with clean surfaces and floors.

It's time to take out the trash.

If an investment banker can live with 600 items, I can too.

I will first make a very detailed sweep of my entire apartment getting rid of everything I know immediately that I do not want. I will recycle or donate everything that can be. I will discard the rest. I do not know how long this will take but I will chonicle it here. I am literally going to start in the southeast corner of my apartment and proceed in a clockwise fashion until I have made it back to the southeast corner. I think if I try to discriminate by room, or function, or anything like that I am going to get lost by my ego discrimination, e.g., "Let's get the hall closet done today!"

Once I have done that, I will again start in the southeast corner and begin the inventory which I will keep in a spreadsheet (Open Office, of course) which will eventually be ported into mySQL on my home server for maintenance and reporting. I'll let MySQL count it for me and I will begin the process, if necessary (and I assume at this point it most certainly will be), of choosing what to discard/donate/sell to get the number to 600. I'll probably make a web project out of this and post it all somewhere, but I'll figure out the details of that bridge when I am ready to cross it.

Liberation from the tyranny of my material possessions will be fun.

I mentioned above that I wanted to free the world of consumerism yet I have only discussed my own liberation. As I have a number of friends trying to realize the emptiness of self I just want to point out that this distinction, between freeing myself of consumerism and freeing the world of consumerism, is illusory. One cannot do one without doing the other. But, one must also realize that it is like endeavoring not to move or think during sitting zazen. We sit every time with the intention to not move or think. We fail every time.

That's why we call it practice.

This discussion was created by rdewald (229443) for no Foes, but now has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

600 things More

600 things

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  • I've just naturally reached a point of having grown tired with material things. I like my computer and internet access, and a couple of books, but beyond that I don't want or need much else. It's pretty awkward when gift-giving occassions arise as I always have to say I don't really want anything, but people insist anyways. *sigh*
    • Ask people to donate money in your name to a worthy cause instead of a gift. If they can't pick a worth cause, pick one for them.
    • When people ask me what I want these days I tell them I would like a copy of the receipt for a $20 donation to their favorite charity on my behalf. Then I make it clear that's what I really want. I keep them all, I scan them in and keep them in a folder on my iBook. I show them my collection, point out some of the unique ones, the shitty ones, the interesting ones, and make it clear that I'm not brushing them off, that is what I really want. I groove on having the receipts just like any collector.
      • Will those receipts count as individual items in the inventory? Does scanning them all in to a single image on your computer change their nature in such a way as to no longer constitute lots of individual items and yet preserve the important essence of what they were?
  • I felt the sudden urge to "purge the house" in much the same way. I would love to donate as much as I can. If you have ideas as to where to donate things, such as books for example, I'd love to share information.
  • I live in a neatly stacked, dusted, dumpster with clean surfaces and floors.

    This is an awesome quote. :-)

    Personally I would consider the speaker and wire as one unit, as long as they are attached and function together: getting rid of the speaker wires makes the speakers useless. Most likely the stereo they are attached to could be part of the one item as well, since none of them work without the rest of the items. However, the drawer full of extra speaker wires should be inventoried, with each pair of wire

  • Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) * on Saturday June 17, 2006 @11:57AM (#15554964)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • Thank you for your thoughtful post.

      These two items, the weight-loss and the possession shedding are two facets of the same issue. Doing one *is* doing the other. I don't exactly know how to put this into words, but I'm not sure I can be successful at one without success in the other.

      Thanks again for your generous heart.
      • Comment removed based on user account deletion
        • Since I want to think about this, let me go a little deeper.

          Both the .6k and 120kilo projects have these elements in common:
          • they are both about living for the benefit of all sentient beings (NB: The Bodhisattva's vow is *not* "live for the benefit of all *other* sentient beings")
          • They are both exercises in letting go
          • They are both exercises in mindfulness
          • They are both practice in making small daily changes to achieve large ultimate changes
          • They are both exercises in the Theravadan admonishment: Do not trade
  • What Sam said is important. But I do think this is a worthy goal you're pursuing.

    I wonder how the number 600 was derived. I also think it would be harder for women. For instance, I have 16 bras. Hmm, that sucks...I'm already behind the guys. Also, women are expected to have more shoes and whatnot. A guy can get by with 2-3 pairs of shoes. The minimum most women who dress up and dress down could have is about 5. No, I'm being serious...Guys can get away with wearing 1 pair of "dressy" shoes with every suit t
    • sex change operation, duh =)
    • I dunno there. A couple of years I consolidated ALL my clothing (and Hubby's) into just what would fit into a 5'x7' closet (which is a LOT of room, actually). I got rid of about 80% of my shoes (mostly because my feet changed size after having kids), and have come to the realization that two pairs of heels is all I need: neutral and black. One pair of sneakers to work out in. A pair of flipflops for the yard. And slightly nicer-than-sneakers "all weather mocs" that I can wear during inclimate weather, altho
      • "...have come to the realization that two pairs of heels is all I need: neutral and black. One pair of sneakers to work out in. A pair of flipflops for the yard. And slightly nicer-than-sneakers "all weather mocs" that I can wear during inclimate weather..."

        Right. Five. That's exactly what I was saying. Guys can easily get away with 2 or 3 (I know guys who have 1 "normal" pair of shoes and 1 "dressy" pair.) We need 5, minimum.

        If I never had to wear a dress I could get by with three pairs of sandals (black,
    • The external HD I have is one item. I will be ripping most of the DVD"s I have and discarding/donating the plastic license document (the disk). This is not a major issue for me, I actually have been using NetFlix for some time and stopped buying DVD's, except for things I wanted a permanent license for (which is rare). Music CD's are the same issue. I have a collection of CD's I will be getting rid of, but the music (for the most part) is ripped to the HD. I now only buy CDs when I can't get the music
      • See, that's just you getting to keep your stuff based on a technicality. You want to keep the DVD, so you tranfer it to a different medium so that you get to keep the DVD without having to count it as an item.
        • Good point. Just imagine: you're going to live a life of elegant simplicity and frugality on a desert island, a model of pared-down essentials only. You are only allowed three objects to take with you. What are they? 1) Combination pocket knife/multitool/fork/spoon. 2) Bowl. 3) WiFi and DSL-equipped Powerbook pre-loaded with every movie ever shot, every song ever recorded and every book ever written.
    • 16 bras? That is a choice, not a requirement.

      I see that along that same lines as the forks. You have that many so you don't have to do the wash as often, it's all about convenience. If the number of items you own was important to you, you would be able to get rid of most of those bras. I get by just fine with two regular bras and two sports bras and lots of washing.
    • *Very* good point about them DVDs, and it got me thinking in another direction - I have approx. 500 CDs of backups, and that's *real* backups of photos, stuff I wrote for magazines and the web, music I composed, etc. I could probably reduce that to about 10-20 DVDs with the essential stuff, but that would probably take quite some time and suffering to complete.

      Another thing I've been thinking about - I'm married with children and there's lots of stuff we all (or at least the Doctress and I) use regularly. T
  • The concept sounds great, though, without any of the story, the 600 number seems arbitrarily assigned. It does seem like a reasonable number, though.

    I was discussing it with my flatmate, and we came to the question of set. Do snowshoes count as one or two? I argued one, because they are a functional set. I'm not sure if this is true to the form or spirit of the process, though. Where do you draw the line? Is it eight forks, or is it a single set? What about the dining set? Are these considerations, or am I
    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

      • We all know what "600 items" means.

        But do we? Really?

        The hairsplitting can be significant. Socks obviously come in pairs, so we all "know" that a pair of socks count as one item. But is my computer one item? Or do you count the five hard drives, DVD burner, two digital TV cards, case, wireless keyboard and wireless mouse individually? If it is about consumerism, should we count anything beyond the "basics" as seperate items? If so, a wired keyboard and mouse are included, but the wirless pair I have should

      • If you put all of your CDs on a hard drive, you're not really parting with them, now are you?
  • I try to be fairly minimalist, within reason. I do have more stuff than I should at the moment, though. Time is one of the biggest constraints these days. The most cluttered room in our apartment is the office, which happens to be where we spend most of our waking hours at home. The most serene, uncluttered room is the living room, where we spend very little time except when friends come over (other than the all important couch-nap, of course). It’s been a goal of mine for a while to get this room as
  • than I thought I would. But the conclusion [slashdot.org] is that I really respect your decision, and I really hope you can accomplish this.
  • I think you should listen to Vulture Culture by The Alan Parsons Project [wikipedia.org].

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