Too Much Stuff
It often seems that the whole world is thinking the same thing at the same time as I am. A discussion on Margin Walker about real value and the nature of work, a show on NPR's The Connection entitled Storing the Selfabout accumulating stuff... Both are issues which, although always somewhere in the back of my mind, have moved front and center in the past year / months.
Adam, of Marginwalker, willfully unemployed and slowly depleting his rainy-day fund writes
not only am I personally almost infinitely better off (emotionally, physically, psychically) not working, but I feel, and believe the results will bear me out, as if I have contributed far more to the world I live in while not formally employed.
I'm sure Adam's feelings that he is more productive outside the confines of the "company" ring true to many. It certainly does to me, as I sit here writing on my web site on company time.
I didn't always feel that way, in fact when I first started working here, I actually enjoyed many hours of overtime, and would leave the office at night only because I had to go home to eat... and then I took my work home. I was producing value then. Sure I produced value for the client, in the form of an application to make their job easier, or coordinating a web project with the home office in America, but more importantly, I was creating value for myself in the form of learning and personal growth.
Now, although I still produce value for the client, the personal value is all but gone (and this of course is reflected in the output I am able to give the client). Now I can't wait to get off at night, because that is when I can work on the too numerous personal projects, be it Mfop, one of the many other tragically ever-incomplete killer apps I have begun, a web-site for someone else, a web site for me, a painting, or learning photography, the value of my personal projects has far outgrown that of my work projects... to me that is.
Adam poses the obvious question of how to make other people realize the value, and compensate him enough, for the work he is doing outside of work. In his words, "My challenge, from here on in, is going to be to invent situations that allow me to do what I do best and still put food on the table.".
This is where his post, and the Connection show start to come together. The most obvious answer to how to still put food on the table, is to think hard and realize how large of a table you need, how large of a kitchen is it in, and how rich is the food? In other words, how much stuff do you need to be satisfied? Obviously the less stuff you need, the easier it is to acquire it.
Monday's Connection was a program about how storage facilities are a booming business in the US. People are renting more and more space, to store more and more useless stuff. Sure it all has memories, and this is something I understand. I have box loads of memories at my parents house in Michigan. But even memories have a price. Last year, my brother suggested we (the three children, all moved out now) rent a storage facility to move our memories out of the house. My suggestion was that if the house really is too crowded, we just sell the junk...
And that is what I am doing now with the junk in my Tokyo apartment. Some how, in the four years I have lived here, I went from one suitcase full of clothes and a guitar, to a ten tatami-mat apartment with only about five tatami-mats of remaining space. For a few months now, I have been planning a method to forcibly teach myself to live without accumulating stuff, and as a result, allow me to have more time to do what I value (and hopefully some others will value as well).
The biggest overhead in my life is currently my apartment and the utilities that come with it. It is part of what keeps me in fear of quitting my job. Sure I could live off my savings for a while, longer if I am able to curtail some of my other expensive habits such as the bi-weekly night out, and buying the good natto, but nothing would really change, and I'd still be a slave to this apartment no matter how much I might enjoy my new job. And what makes me a slave to this tiny little hole (besides the fact that it is relatively cheap and has a great location in a quite neighborhood, with a great view out of a south-facing window over a river lined with trees) is that I need someplace to put my stuff. Gone are the days when moving meant a train ride instead of a moving truck.
I'm getting rid of it all (well, most of it). I'm selling or giving away most of the books I have accumulated over the past four years, trashing the moldy futons and rank pillows, saying sayonara to the kotatsu (table with a heater underneath) and donating the shelves of ragged clothes and t-shirts I have bought or received through the years as a display of my affinity with a certain club or event I know longer participate in or remember. The noisy hot water heater goes back in the trash where I found it, and I've begun looking for someone with eight extra feet for the shoes I don't need.
Yes, I'm Krazy Kevin, and everything must go! The few things that I do use, I will keep, either temporarily stashed in Tomoe's soon to be overcrowded apartment, or shipped home to mom and dad. And in the end (hopefully of November) when I get rid of the apartment, I will have everything I need (which inevitably include a camera, an ultra-light laptop, and an Air-H wireless Internet card) to live and produce value for me tucked neatly into a pair of saddle bags for my bike and a backpack.
And after a trip home for Christmas, the only overcrowding I will have to worry about for the next six months will be if I can somehow forage enough to eat that I no longer fit into my two-man tent as I ride my bike around Japan in search of value for my life, and learning to be free of stuff.
I have no illusions that being homeless and on the road will be near as easy or enjoyable as I have, for the past six monthes, been prone to fantasize as I am sitting at my desk answering valueless emails about this schedule, or that broken link and whose fault it was. I don't know if I will be able to off-set some of the poverty with an ocassional freelance job here and there, and I'm scared as hell about how such a blithe irresponsibility will reflect on me and my work ethic, or effect my attempts to get into a decent graduate program, but I know that until I do it, and love it or hate it, I will never be free from the fantasy.
Comments
Kudos on your decision.
I know both how hard it is to do, as well as how liberating it can feel.
And if you ever find yourself in need of a short term crash-pad and free net connection in the Toyko area, you can always give me a ring (there, I said it on a public forum, so I can't take it back :)
Posted by: Kakyou | August 27, 2003 06:08 PM
Woo-hoo brother! Amen to that post!
I've been clearing out my stuff not 30 minutes ago. Just started on the book collection. Losing the chaff. For a few months now I've been looking around thinking that we have just too much crap. A 2 bedroom flat that was entered with suitcases is, 2 years later, now so full of shit that the we need to rent the garage from the landlord to store half of it in. A BIG clearout is coming. Is it the precursor to change? You seem a little more ahead than I am. Love your photos.
Posted by: Rastafarout | August 27, 2003 08:13 PM
hey, congratulations! nice entry, great decision.
my whole reason for coming to japan was to clear all the clutter (physical and mental) out of my life. i found myself
(1) living in a 4 bedroom sharehouse as the caretaker, having inherited all my mum's antiques and a houseful of furniture after she died
(2) insanely busy and self employed in a tough industry (music) and bored beyond description.
i was completely bogged down and trapped by my belongings - not just physical, but obligatory. Too much responsibility = too much stress. I had lost every creative urge in my body. sure, a relatively successful freelance career (after struggling through years of low income work - or no work at all...), yes, a house full of lovely stuff, yes, but no time to breathe, and no freedom to fly.
ok, so all my old stuff is in storage so i haven't quite cleared "all that stuff" out yet (although i had a huge garage sale and donated boxes and boxes of junk to the RSPCA) ... but I arrived here with just a suitcase and a large daypack - laptop (full of mp3's), walkman and a few books.... i felt infinitely lighter, like the fog had lifted...
Now i live quietly in the japanese mountains. I have an apartment with the basic neccessities supplied by my employers, very little junk. For the first 6 months here I was so astonished by "the incredible lightness of being" - the spring is back in my walk, the sparkle is back in my eye, nothing phases me.... I am happier and more at peace than i have been for many many years. i am working at stuff that, while having no great impact on the outside world, is infinitely rewarding and fullfilling. just the stuff that i am really interested in.
my friends, and colleagues were shocked at my decision, but ultimately I think they understood it, and eventually celebrated it. i think it jolted many of them into thinking about this "stuff" stuff on a deeper level, since I was always such a rock-solid player.
anyways, i didn't mean to ramble on quite so much... I only just stumbled onto your site (through the JP list and 35 degrees' kimono philes...), but I've had a great look around and really like your site.
ps sometimes i feel that the greatest source of clutter in this apartment is this laptap, and its connection with the net...
Posted by: martine | August 28, 2003 12:13 AM
Wow, it's nice that everyone is so supportive of me becoming poor.
Kakyou: although it probably sounds cooler to do an entire 6 month trip without coming back to Tokyo, I'll probably be back at least once a month to take care of some obligations I can't really get out of... (feed he birds) Anyway, if Tomoe kicks me out, I'll be taking you up on that offer.
Rastafarout: I'm glad you like the photos. I hope you don't get sick of them, because there will be LOTS more when I have all day free to take photos, and I am not walking the same beaten path from my apartment to the train to the office back to the train back to my apartment every day.
Martine: The way you say it makes me sound like a burnt out banker or something... I don't think I am. In fact, I don't work nearly as hard as I used to when I liked my job. I'm not really overworked and stressed because of it, I'm more stressed because I feel trapped in a rut that I can't ease out of... so I have to just turn my wheels 90 degrees and go off the entire road.
And I totally agree with you about the computer. and I loath my computer. I could acomplish so much if it wasn't there distracting me all the time... but I also don't think I would enjoy a trip like I am planning without access to a web site.
Even though it is a fantasy I have had for years, even before I knew how to use a computer, I would loose all motivaton to take a lot of photos and write about anything I see or do if I thought no one would ever see it. The fact that I can put it on the the web in almost real time is a great motivator, and makes me really excited about it.
Posted by: kevin | August 28, 2003 11:34 PM
I've been enjoying your site for several weeks now. I found it through a link on Big in Japan. I hope you keep posting pics, etc. from the road. I just can resist a movie reference:
"I'm going to walk the earth, like Caine in Kung Fu" :)
Posted by: John M. | August 29, 2003 06:24 AM
hey kevin,
sorry - just reread my rant from the other night and all i have to say is that i let the summer air get to my head....(phew, i get so verbose sometimes, and i don't even notice...)
i certainly didn't suggest that you were an overworked banker, i was just mouthing off about my specific situation and how "stuff" operates on many different levels.
so best of luck with the big move. and yeah, if you get to the fujigoko area, please shoot me an email, i have 3 spare futons and plenty of space.
Posted by: martine | August 29, 2003 10:14 PM
Hey Martine,
Even if you did suggest I was an overworked banker, I wouldn't take offence
:-)
I know there *are* people who work a lot harder than I do, and need to "throw it all away" a lot more than I do too. I just wanted to make sure people didn't think I was whining that I am overworked. I'm not really... I just feel I could do better things with the time that I am working.
And I'll definatly be stopping by :-)
I am counting on meeting a lot of bloggers (and hopefully ispireing a lot of new bloggers)
Posted by: kevin | August 29, 2003 10:55 PM
Hi guys. Never be a cynic, even a gentle one. Never help out a sneer, even at the devil. Help me! It has to find sites on the: Online scholarships on the dl. I found only this - online only scholarships applications. Coca cola buildings come to participate a horror of mandate subjects and drum a right situation in the comments to benefit, scholarships online. His rickrack depends his thirteen ways only: franklin denied also search to change on them specifically at much, scholarships online. THX :cool:, Leander from Panama.
Posted by: Leander | February 17, 2010 05:44 AM
Hey, that's the gertaest! So with ll this brain power AWHFY?
Posted by: Henrietta | May 10, 2011 10:59 AM
TYVM you've selovd all my problems
Posted by: Missy | May 11, 2011 05:12 AM