"That's all a house is - a pile of stuff with a cover on it." -- George Carlin
Humans seem to share a collecting gene with pack rats. If we have the opportunity, we will gather together just as much stuff as we can, whether we will eventually need it or not. It's just the sheer joy of HAVING the stuff around that seems to give our brains a powerful reward. Therefore, if we have bigger homes, we tend to have a lot more stuff.
As regular Celsias readers know, when too much stuff sits around, it tends to get wasted, whether it's food, furniture or finances. Space may be infinite, but not on our little planet. In learning to live with less stuff, we help give more to everybody else - plants, humans and other animals.
So, how do you live with less stuff if we all have the urge to collect? You could become homeless, as I was for over five years, but that's a little drastic. There are other ways.
Live In Smaller Homes
Forward-thinking folks from science fiction writers to ABC News have been predicting that living in smaller homes is inevitable. Say hello to the micro home. It's about twenty feet by twenty feet per person (although this can vary considerably), prefabricated and energy efficient. You hardly need any energy to maintain such a small space. It could be a geodesic dome, the back of a van or a kind of yurt made of natural materials.
And, of course, its small size forces you to keep only what you really need.
My Bender
For each hardship I endured during my time living homeless in the English woods, I gained a benefit. One is that I know I can live comfortably with not a lot of stuff. I lived in a small bender, made by myself and my on-again, off-again boyfriend. The bender lasted longer than our relationship. It probably still would be standing if it hadn't have been burnt down.
We bent green, stripped hazel trunks into several arches (hence the name bender) and covered the frame with tarpaulins and an old Army tent. We furnished it from other people's trash. Eventually, when I was left on my own, I found living in such a small space was like living in a constant reassuring hug.
I had one metal footlocker for clothes and one bookcase for reading materials. If I had any more, the mold and the rats would destroy them. The homeless around the area would pass on any books, clothes or jewelry they didn't need any more to other homeless.
Loss of Stuff
The less stuff you have, the less that stuff can be taken away from you. When I was younger, I was an avid collector of model horses. I had at least a thousand at one point. It got to where I had to stack them in crates where I could never see them. And I got too scared to leave the flat in case there was a fire so I could be there to rescue my models.
You probably know people like this. They might not necessarily be compulsive collectors or hoarders, but their stuff owns them rather than the other way around.
If you want to sincerely live with less stuff, you need to keep your mind in the present. This helps the future. Stay in the moment and don't dwell so much on the past, obsess about the future or compare your stuff to other's stuff. Take up meditation if you have to. Just like in the classic George Carlin monologue, when we leave our home, we take our best stuff with us.
Every possession on earth is our stuff. We just borrow it for a little while and then we pass it along.
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