What are you attached to? Can you become detached?
So, the photographer was here yesterday and took 50 pictures of the house. We should have them sometime today, and then in the next week or so we’ll signup and post them on a FSBO site …. and that’s the signal that the move is really going to happen. It will be an extremely difficult thing for Ms. Freud, and I anticipate great disturbance in the Force.
While she does not have The Hoarder sickness, she is a Keeper of Things. Everything is a “memento”, even clinical notes dating back ten years. So, how will she be able to get over 3,500 square feet (that includes the basement) of STUFF into a two bedroom apartment?? Her choices are; 1) sell, sell, sell stuff, 2) rent all the storage spaces in town, 3) learn the discipline of Detachment ….. or, a combination of all three.
Regarding that last one, let me go all Jeebus and Buddha on ya;
The Dalai Lama says, — “Most of our troubles are due to our passionate desire for and attachment to things that we misapprehend as enduring entities.” In other words, the most important concept when trying to incorporate non-attachment into your life — IF that is your goal — is by consciously acknowledging that everything that’s manifested in our physical world is temporary, not forever. You can only “lose” that which you cling to.
I got divorced after 19 years of marriage. Our house was bulging with stuff. My most cherished possessions were in my exceedingly large den …. a huge mahogany desk and literally a few thousand books. But, when I left that marriage in 2002, I drove off with what little I could stuff in my 1995 Lincoln Mark VIII …. a rather small car in terms of storage, 75% of which carried my clothes. I left poor as a church mouse, never looked back, and never regretted any of my “loss”. I came into this world naked and poor, and it’s likely I’ll exit the same way. lol
That’s NOT for everyone! And certainly not something I “expect” Ms Freud – or anyone else – to mimic. It’s merely my story so, please do not misunderstand what I’m saying. Non-attachment is NOT having to give up their possessions to somehow feel “free”. This is very far from the truth. Detachment is simply not feeling owned by the things you possess or desire … to be able to “let go” without remorse.
So, I ask again. If you are attached to stuff, can you become detached? OR, if you’ve become detached to stuff, how did YOU do it?
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(P.S. Looking forward to your responses, later tonight. Got stuff to do with my dad, and will be gone until late afternoon.)
Just do it. I quite smoking by just doing it.
I am a real estate photographer and it is truly disdisgusting how much people hod on to. And this is when they KNOW their house will be photographed.
Just sell all that shit. It is proven that having a lot of shit causes psychologically damage.
You never know when you’re going to need a mayonnaise jar full of lock washers.
I’m not a keeper. I had over 3,000 LP’s at one time. We have a large 3,600 sq/ft home. However, we wanted to remodel the room where I stored the LP’s. As I started to review the records, I realized I was hanging on to records that I hadn’t played in years and years. In my mind these were so ‘neat’ that I wanted to share them with others – but in reality very few people care. Also, listening to one record a day, I would need 10 yrs to listen to all of them.
I kept about 1,000 of them – classical, jazz, and a few rock. Sold the rest. Never have missed them. Should probably go through them again, and cull more out.
Same with my trains. I’m the only child, raised by my well off grandparents, got anything I wanted. I had three sets of Lionel trains, steam engine, twin diesel engines, cattle cars, barrel cars, coal loader cars, rocket launcher car, water tanks, switches, houses, you name it. My grandparents ‘saved’ these trains for me. At age 40 (my grandmother was going into assisted living) it was time to go and get my trains. My wife and I opened to boxes – the trains were amazing. I realized I was never going to use them. It was hard, but I knew someone else would like to have these. Sold the entire collection for $6,000.
Do not, I repeat, do not put things in storage. You will never use/access them again. You’ll just be stuck with a monthly storage fee.
Good luck with your move.
We had a come to Jesus moment about 7 years ago. My family and I were living in a remote community in the north and our daughter became very ill – we nearly lost her at the tender age of 4. We needed to move to a large centre to be near medical treatment for her as the problem is genetic and requires steady maintenance. The problem is that the price of real estate sky rockets in these regions in comparison to where we came from. So we sold damn near everything that was’t nailed down including quads, trailers, some of my precious guns and much, much more. We down sized the house in the new location, got rid of some more stuff and learned to live with less. Then we started a business…. you know – just to make things simpler??? 🙁 So we down sized a bit more.
7 years later my daughter is stable and very healthy and living a mostly normal life. We are still in the smaller house with less stuff. I think it is better this way – eventually we will move out further into the boonies again when she is older so that we can have a larger garden and maybe enough room for a second home for her. But I don’t miss the stuff – in fact it helped me to find more solace and peace in simpler things – like growing radishes and going for walks with the dog. Sounds corny but its true. Life is better with less (so long as it is a choice).
Francis
I like stuff. Not all of it, but the stuff I have – I don’t want to lose it. I don’t want to live in a small house, drive tiny cars and I by no fucking means want a rail pass, bus pass, or commuter pass. I don’t have a huge place, but it ain’t no micro bullshit murphy bed by night ‘tiny house’ either. Things got outta hand on the way up, but now all I hear about is downsizing is better, calmer, and more peaceful. Maybe it is to some, but most are just rationalizing another issue. Justifying the broader decline as reality hits home. Its hitting my home as well, but I don’t like and know that that issue – just because its on my doorstep, isn’t welcome. The guy that dies with the right stuff and the right amount of stuff, wins. But stuff is great.
Francis ,…learned to live with less….I think that’s the key.
Stucky , now if you could just get over your attachments to food , sex and cop videos .Your life would be peaceful .
My wife and I plan on four more years and done with the construction industry. We’ve been married 35 years now, 27 years working together only 20 feet apart. Time to sell and slow down a bit, smell some different roses so we have something to talk about at dinner time.
If the world as we know it still exists in four years we will hook up the fifth wheel and take off to see America.
There is a task known as Work Camping, you can work as many hours as you want, along with the days you want.
You get a camping lot for free and sometimes a small wage depending on the area you decide to settle in. Work the weekends as that is the busy time in the national parks and then have the rest of the week to explore, and to be alone.
So to answer your question, once you decide to really downsize and take a serious look at all the stuff in the basement, crawl space, and garage, it’s going to be very easy to purge the stuff, it will be a joy to purge the stuff.
I don’t get attached easily to most things, and when I do it’s usually a fleeting thing. When it comes to physical objects, I get attached to cars, and some of my more useful tools/knives/whatever. I had a ’96 Mustang GT which made a great sound and I got a lot of use out of, but was happy to sell it for what I thought it was worth. I love my G35 coupe, but I don’t think I’ll mind selling it when the time comes. I still hold onto my camping gear, and it hasn’t given out on me after decades of use. I tend not to buy things very much at all, and when I do I usually buy smaller, higher quality things. Not accumulating is the easiest part. I might even be more likely to trash pick things and fix them up. I usually get over 3 years out of my shoes, and use the more beat up ones for dirty activities. Ditto for clothes. I rarely use my highest quality clothes or shoes unless I’m doing a social activity, and I keep them in top condition so they last for years. It makes more sense to me to buy quality and maintain the things you have than to replace them every few years.
I had a nice mattress, box spring, and frame that were worth a decent amount, but when I had to move across country I realized it would be cheaper to sell them to a friend than it would be to use a rental. Now I use a luxury futon and a detachable wooden frame. Nearly everything I own can be taken apart and fit into my sports coupe, even if I need to make multiple trips. The only exception is the furniture that my dad has built over the years, which in my eyes is priceless. If it had to, I’d put it in storage.
The biggest attachments I have aren’t physical objects. I love my coffee in the morning, my craft beers on the weekend, my relative freedom, time with close friends, going out to my favorite restaurants, and especially the use of the internet. But if I had to, I could survive without them.
Detached… The hard part is getting dear wife to slowly adjust to having stuff go to kids, Goodwill or recycling.
How?
I put minimal essential gear (about 18 lbs worth) in a backpack a few years ago and walked from sw France to the Galician coast (part of the Camino de Santiago) over 6 weeks time.
By the time I got home, I could not see the need for most “stuff” that was unrelated to food production or preservation.
Enough is a banquet.
DaP
Stupid question Nicholas. Let’s start brain storming #15.
Da Perfessor says: …..Enough is a banquet.
If I might add something to your excellent observation Perfessor?
Enough is a hell of a lot less than many people believe it is.
The Buddhist view on non-attachment is not asceticism for it’s own sake. There is nothing wrong with having nice stuff. The question is, can you give it up and leave it behind when you need to, as Francis did? I still keep thousands of books that I will never read, simply because I haven’t needed to give them up.
Much harder is non-attachment to the idea of the self. “Your possessions, the work that you do, relationships, status, knowledge and other common ego identifiers are all external things. None of these are you.”
DaP and Maggie saved me the trouble of saying much: thanks!
Stick with it
Detachment is harder for women. If not for women, men would still be living in a cave and content to do so. You think any real man truly gives a shit about granite counter tops? You need to look at material things as charges upon your time, the only real wealth. “A rich man has a surplus of money. A wealthy man has a surplus of time.” Time is the only thing you have in life that is real and you don’t know how much of that you have.
I don’t get attached to many material possessions of my own. I’ve moved way too many times in the past 10 years to keep too much stuff.
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My wife and I just went through this in January of this year although I started getting her used to the idea a couple of years ago. Neither of us are hoarders but our house is only 1000 sq ft. After living and traveling for 30 years together we had quite the collection of stuff.
In January, we literally opened every drawer, cabinet and box and went laid hands on every single thing we own and made a decision as to whether it stayed or went. With a few exceptions the rules were 1.If we had not seen it or used in in the last year>>>it goes. 2. If we picked up something we forgot we had>>>it goes. 3. If it was just going to go back into a box, drawer or cabinet and sit unused for a the next year>>>it goes.
We ended up with four piles. Garbage, charity, garage sale and stuff we kept. It wasn’t too tough for me because I’ve been hoping for a house fire for the better part of a decade. Once my wife got started it was pretty easy for her too. I was amazed at how little of our stuff was made in China. By the time China became the dominant manufacturer of stuff, we had already filled our household with stuff made elsewhere. Even as newlyweds we saw the value and advantage of buying antique furniture as opposed to IKEA type crap. I was also amazed at how long we’ve had most of our stuff without having to replace it. Buying quality has also been one of our goals in life too.
I guess you could say I’m attached to all that remains but all I really care about are my wife and dogs. Trying to replace what is left without buying Chinese would be tough but I’m embracing minimalism in my life. My wife is joining me although she is kicking and screaming at times.
Tell Ms Freud……doctor, heal thyself! Tell her to imagine the house is on fire and she has five minutes to save what means the most. Everything else goes.
Wonderful insights and responses!
(Except from Billah’s Wife, which is to be expected from on of the biggest ASSHOLES on TBP.)
“Tell Ms Freud……doctor, heal thyself! Tell her to imagine the house is on fire and she has five minutes to save what means the most. Everything else goes.”
Best advice here. I recommend allowing her one of those two drawer filing cabinets for her momentos to fill to her heart’s content and getting rid of anything else. If her clinical notes from 10 years ago need to be saved I recommend typing them and saving them on a tiny flash drive.
So, I’m at the doctor’s office with dad. One hour wait in the Big Room … another half hour in the smaller waiting room. Finally, an attractive, 50ish, blond comes in the room. She cheerfully asks in a rather pronounced accent, “Who is the patient?” I point to dad, and the following conversation takes place;
Doc: “OK, Victor. Are you taking your medication?”
Dad: “TAKE A VACATION?? NO, I HAVE NOT.”
Doc (trying not to laugh): “No, are you taking your pills?”
Dad: “PAYING BILLS? YES, I PAY MY BILLS.”
Doc is now cracking up as I explain to her dad is hard of hearing (in case she wasn’t aware), and she pretty much talks only to me from that point. Dad’s thyroid numbers are on the low side.
Anyway, as things are drawing to a close, I ask “Do you mind if I ask where you’re from?” She responds simply, “Ukraine.”
I say to dad “DAD, THE DOCTOR IS FROM UKRAINE.”. Well, Ukrainian is one of seven, or more, languages dad is conversant in. So, they start talking back and forth, and soon the doctor is laughing, and so is dad.
Now here’s the thing …. they were talking in a NORMAL tone of voice. Dad’s hearing seemingly improved 1000% when talking to a hot blond! So, as we were leaving, I asked the doctor, “Was my dad flirting with you?”. And she just smiled and said, “You better ask him!”. So, when we were in the car, I did ask, and dad just told me to mind my own business. Which, I did. Until I got home. And I told mom the whole entire story. And she said, “Who cares? I feel sorry for the nurse, though!” And, then I left, cuz I really didn’t want to hear THAT story.
@ Stucky:
When they stop noticing pretty ladies, it’s time to get really worried.
I’m glad your Dad is better !!
I have a house full of crap, but I just need my computer, one gun (because let’s face it, none of us shoot all our guns well), and my old photos (kids, wedding,family etc) and maybe, ok, one more gun. The rest of it I don’t need and would be happier without.
Get Ms. Freud focused on her/your future. Make memories, don’t accumulate objects.
I have a lot of hand tools and they have become a pain in the butt. I had a fair amount to start with and then many were given to me. At one time i had eight rollaway toolboxes.
Otherwise i try to make sure i have only things i need and that have a function. A good example is my shotgun.I keep reading about people owning so many guns like they are a drug addict. I find one shotgun,It came with two barrells.Can do any kind of hunting and home defense a person can need.
Having things like sleeping bags and warm blankets. Camping gear. extra food.Basic things for an emergency/collapse. And to think i wasn’t even a boy scout.
As a Christian i know that things are not that important and are not going with me.
T4C is hot!!
I think Buddhism also talks about being detached from relationships. I am NOT a Buddhist … and I am NOT going that far (although it probably makes sense in several cases). I’m just talking about detachment from material things.
“I think Buddhism also talks about being detached from relationships.”
It talks about detachment from the physical world. This includes our possessions, our families, and our own bodies. It isn’t about detachment from our souls, immaterial soul connections, our memories, or experiences. There are two things about Buddhism that I love:
1. Detachment from material and immaterial things to achieve freedom (or nirvana for some)
2. Acknowledgement of “monkey mind” towards attachment of thoughts.
“Buddha described the human mind as being filled with drunken monkeys, jumping around, screeching, chattering, carrying on endlessly. We all have monkey minds, Buddha said, with dozens of monkeys all clamoring for attention. Fear is an especially loud monkey, sounding the alarm incessantly, pointing out all the things we should be wary of and everything that could go wrong.”
After I started practicing zazen meditation I realized thoughts were nothing more than fleeting thoughts. Just because I had a thought didn’t mean it was true or false.
“That is my daughter and my son.” ———- T4C
Oh, yeah? Well …… welllll …… I KNEW that! I think what I meant was that hot daughters come from HOT MOMS. Right?
Stephanie
On a scale of 1-10, how deeply are you immersed in Buddhism? I’m a very casual follower, having read nothing more than a few books by Dalai Lama. I like what I’ve read I also faithfully watched the old TV show, Kung Fu, with David Carradine.
Stephanie,
I recognize there are many schools of Buddhism, and I won’t venture to guess which one(s) you find most relevant to you. In Theravada Buddhism, though, there is the doctrine of anatta, or “no soul”, which doesn’t mean that we don’t have a non-material aspect of our being (I believe the Buddha would consider that “speculation”), just that the soul has no fixed, unchanging nature.
I would say probably about a hard 7. I have my own eclectic blend of various religions and philosophies also with science and physics to find my own version of truth and knowledge of existence. I am not specifically religious considering most religions are a collection of stories to illustrate a metaphorical understand of the universe and creation. And I found that most people love their religion more than their God or understanding of God.
AP: I like Soto sect and reading Dogen. I believe there is a soul or a light/energy in all of us. But I would say the human understanding of what it could be is still rudimentary.
Oh, and on Stucky’s question of how to BECOME detached, I find that poverty focuses the mind wonderfully…
@SShep More than fifty years practicing Soto Zen and if you keep at it, you will experience your belief; trust me, I did and at nearly 70 can honestly say that if it came down to it, I could live under a bridge. I’d rather not, mind, and doubt I’ll have to, but knowing that brings me the comfort that my most cherished “possession”–my time–will be the last thing to go. Remember the words of the clearance sale sign in the window: “Everything Must Go!” And it will.
We referred to our storage unit simply as HELL.
You do not want to go there. Listen to Dutchman.
Finally rid of ours after 3 years, although some of the things did move again to our garage and attic. sigh…..
Stuck if you’re serious on selling this puppy, take my advice about the St. Joseph. Just head over to the Catholic supplies place or shop online, dig a little hole, and plant that sucker upside down in your front yard. You’ll have an offer within 2 weeks. Don’t be a pussy, try it, I swear it works.
I’ll even give you a link; this one is $9.50 w/free shipping!
http://www.ebay.com/itm/ST-JOSEPH-STATUE-6-Inch-Statue-for-Dedication-w-Blessed-Medal-/251370759016?hash=item3a86dd6368
im not sure at this stage of my life that im attached to anything other than family . ive had to start over sooooo many times with nothing that its almost old hat . altho I have learned the value of some of the luxuries of life that make life tolerable . friends . time in the sunshine .a quite ride on my bad ass bike lol , I flirt with my liscense being taken every time I ride lol but its fun.warm ,dry feet. a hot shower . ive lived so primatively before that I will not willingly leave it because the primitive life does indeed take away some of the humanity that ive developed that gives me a reason to live .
except for family ,I can walk away from everything in less than 30 mins , because my skills will stay intack ,other than spelling skills lol . so unless I become mentally deficient I can recreate everything except my family
Westcoaster
OK …. what if I buy Joseph …. AND also a Mary statue. If I bury them together, and then when I dig them up … will I have a free baby Jeebus?
Thanks for the advice …. but, I’m not superstitious.
Stucky, whatever you do, don’t put anything in storage. You’ll say you’ll go through it someday and have a tag sale, but that day will never come.
Stephanie Sheppard…..Here comes my Zen groaners:
Do you hear about the Zen Buddhist hot dog vendor? He’ll make you one with everything.
A man bought a hot dog from the same Zen Buddhist vendor and paid with a twenty dollar bill. After waiting a bit he asked for his change. The vendor said “Change comes from within”.
Having been on the planet for 3/4 of a century I have made more moves than the average critter. In the end, things become meaningless. You can always find whatever you need at your new location and there is fun and adventure in the finding. Keep what you can carry and sell or donate the rest. Trade up and concentrate your wealth in stuff that you either treasure or can readily trade for goods and services. Enjoy the transition.
T4C,
Thank you. It was an odd development I’ll admit. Somehow I ended up interested in physics and its concepts spilled into other areas of my life. Now I think its a shame that schools make the subject so boring and tedious when it is really fascinating and beautiful.
Fuck it. Everything disappears.
When I retired and put my house on the market I had no need for most of the things in it. They belonged to another life. My broker produced a buyer and I put the things I wanted into one of those PODS containers. I invited the wife of the buyer over and said if there was anything she wanted to just take a roll of blue masking tape I gave her and mark it and I would leave it for them.
To my delight there was virtually nothing she did not want. A cake mixer, an ironing board, a large punch bowl with plastic cups even an old bowling ball I had! My junk was new treasure to her or maybe she had the same problem. A houseful of junk she didn’t want to move and was content to inherit mine.
Just read all the responses and I agree with not renting a storage unit. They are financial black holes. Not only did you have to pay for your stuff when you bought it, paying monthly storage fees mean you get to pay for it again. Bonus! If you’re like many ‘Muricans, you’re still paying off the credit card bill for the stuff you’re paying to keep in storage. Double Bonus!
If you just have to keep it, move it into your smaller apartment with you, live with it for a while and Jeebus will guide you.
I came from that place you were at with your car loaded up with basic shit. Never felt more free.
When the sexy mulatta and I got married, she had the garage full of crap on the ground. I bought some shelves and boxes and packed everything away. Then she began packing every available nook and cranny. I cleared the jumble inside. She bought more shit to fill the empty spaces I created.
I’ve always loved to throw shit away. I was born to clear shit out. One time, the Captain let me clear out a shed, I took everything out and proceeded to put useful stuff back and trash the stuff airmen had left behind. He took one look and said, I guess the best way to start is to get everything out first. No shit.
I’ve had that urge to get rid of shit since the time we lost everything in a series of misfortunes; evicted, no storage, left shit behind, pictures, a whole household, we were left like refugees. I grew up distrusting material possessions. They have a way of leaving you high and dry.
I can’t understand the idea that one must gather shit for old age. I live by the code, if you don’t use it in 3 years, you don’t need it. If you haven’t needed it in 1 year, consider discarding it or giving it away.
Sell everything anyone will buy.
I’d have problems selling a handful of my firearms, a few photos and my pop’s mr2 (when it becomes mine).
I spent the first four years of my adult life as an airborne infantryman. Everything I depended upon could be carried on my back. I grew to love the comfort of a pair of clean socks, the simple functionality of a poncho, the taste of water from a canteen. The tools of my trade- rifle, knife, LBE- were always with me, meticulously maintained, reliable and familiar. Later, as a stand up comic, I lived 365 days of the year living out of the trunk of a car. If the gig came with a hotel room, great, if not I camped out in the sunflower fields of Kansas, in abandoned kivas along the rim of the Grand Canyon, on the sand under the stars of a hundred empty beaches. I did that for 15 years and only owned some camping gear, a single suitcase and a the car- a 1988 Thunderbird Turbo-Coupe.
When I met and married my wife we settled into a small farmhouse on the last working farm in my hometown and we began, starting with our first child, to accumulate the trappings of adult life in America. That pursuit- possessions, career, money, status, luxuries- was the biggest mistake we ever made, but we came to our senses and turned our lives back in the direction that has worked out best for us, shedding the things that represented success in exchange for the non-tangibles that brought meaning to our lives.
When we lost the barn in the fire we had built a clean room in the top of the barn to store my mother’s possessions I had inherited after her passing. I had planned on going through them at some point but the fire made that task a moot point. I had also stored all of my paintings, prints, lithographs and drawings I had produced over my lifetime in that same barn. Likewise our aquaculture systesm, equipment, seed stock, feed and hay for the winter, livestock, tractor…
Losing all of those things- the past, the present and the future- in a single day and not caving in to that loss demonstrated to us as a family that what was important in life was each other, our ability to overcome our loss and our attitude about how we moved forward. We began the cleanup before the ashes were cool and have never looked back.
We come into this world filled with all the hope, wonder and awe that life could possibly bestow and we anchor each to the accumulated weight of earthly possessions until they sink from the weight of the load. All we really own in this life is the time we are given and all we ever spend are the precious minutes and hours and days of that treasure.
Stucky, you are onto something with these topics, the self reflection that they inspire is a gift to a lot of people you will never know and that kind of genrosity is appreciated more than you can imagine.
Thank you again.
Just got off the phone with the photographer …… let’s see if this works
Ye ol’ homestead
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I guess not …..
fucken SHIT!!
One more time …..
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Where I do all my brilliant work ….. just a couple feet from the fridge!
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Ms Freud’s office ….. which last year was solid DARK WALNUT paneling
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Stucky- In the Louisville area, your annual property tax for your house would be no more than $1300 per year, homeowners insurance would be approx. $900 per year. At $12,000 per year in property tax alone…Ouch !
The pics look super nice, good luck. We love your deck.