View Full Version : Paring Down article: The comments are better than the article
http://www.houzz.com/ideabooks/30980998?utm_source=Houzz&utm_campaign=u642&utm_medium=email&utm_content=gallery1
Here's a relatively useful article about how to pare down BEFORE the stuff gets through the door. I thought the article itself was OK, but the comments were really good, because each person added their own system for keeping the clutter down.
A rare case in which the comments were better than the article.
Blackdog Lin
9-9-14, 10:38am
Thanks for the link catherine. I enjoyed both the article and the comments.
ApatheticNoMore
9-9-14, 4:05pm
Some of the free stuff, it will be there on my desk when I walk in (hooray, a mug made in China, just what I always wanted, how did you know?). But since it's just junk work gives me and they are pretty cheap (usually not to my favor), it's not too much of a problem, usually never gets taken home.
I was reading Erich Fromm again, because what I'm not reading Marxist Freudians, I make some time to read Freudian Marxists. Anyway, I think it's really interesting material on the relationship to stuff. Owing stuff in his view ought to (ought to - well secular moral values usually pertain to the treatment of people not stuff - so call it an aesthetic value of sorts) IMPLY action. Ok if you own clothes or jewelry the action is pretty mundane - the action implied is you should wear the darn things, if you own a bed then sleep on it. Quite mundane yes, and some of it just basic needs. If the items owned are books or art the action implied is more sophisticated, one should read, study, appreciate them. If one owns a musical instrument one might ocassionally play the thing. Etc.. What falls out of such a relationship? Decluttering obviously. But also a more active relationship with life.
Of course it's got all the good old social criticism, like how people don't actually drink Coca Cola (yea Coke is an easy target). They drink the people in the Coke ads, they drink the marketing slogans, but to what extent do they actually taste Coca Cola? To what extent do they participate in the actual act itself, rather than things layered on top of the act? And because people don't participate in the active part of ownership the need to own has NO LIMITS. If one read books there are limitations of time etc. - only can only be actively involved in so many. If one owns a bunch of unread book (and who doesn't have some? :laff: ) then there is no limitation. So with any posessions I guess. How would such a philosophy of ownership implying action (bah, but I'm tired of action, I just want to sit here on the couch with my potatoes :) - then probably don't need to buy more) tie into environmental sustainability? It's a philsophy the human race would switch over to post haste if sustainability were the goal. [ideas taken from "the Sane Society", but Fromm says much the same things in "To Have or To Be?"]
I love Erich Fromm!
A couple of my favorite books:
Art of Loving
To Have or To Be?
Escape from Freedom
Awesome how you connected Erich Fromm to an article on Houzz… :) But I certainly agree with the whole manufacturing of needs and the buy-in to the brand, as I've often stated here.
In the Houzz comments, I did appreciate the comments that had to do with how do you part with things that people MADE for you? That's a whole other thing. I find it really, really difficult to part with those. In fact, I can't think of a time when I actually did give away something someone made me. I love those things.
Blackdog Lin
9-9-14, 9:41pm
Thread drift: oh my I had forgotten all about my Erich Fromm groupie phase (circa 1975). The Art of Loving influenced me hugely. I suspect what I took from that book has influenced my whole life since then!
Thanks ApatheticNoMore for the Fromm philosophy. It's been so long that I don't really remember what he said about "things". Perhaps I need to go back and re-read him.
(no, definitely I need to go back and re-read him and see how his theories align with my current life. What a great reminder to find here today.)
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