Ditto. I'm trying to be less possessive about them, though -- there are some I want to hang on to, but others where I reckon it's time someone else had a chance to read/own them. The books that have come in more recently are much easier to get rid of -- it's as if the longer you hang on to something, the more ownership accrues to it, until it ends up so heavy with ownership that you can't even lift it any more.
It's a burden on the planet in terms of the oil burnt and pollution generated in order to produce it.
Definitely.
This makes it easier a) Not to get stuff and b) to encourage people not to give me stuff.
Unfortunately I find it sometimes makes it harder to get rid of stuff -- I don't want things to go to waste, I don't want them to end up in landfill, so I end up hanging on to things for years trying to find the time/energy/opportunity to rehome them usefully, where I think most people would just bin them.
Sadly my old mum has not learnt this important lesson.
You have my sympathy. My mum has started trying to declutter, after decades of hoarding but also feeling miserable about the constant mess... (it sounds like your mum doesn't feel oppressed by her stuff, so maybe it isn't a problem for her -- only for you?). It helps that my dad has just taken early retirement, & he seems to be spending a lot of his spare time getting rid of stuff -- seeing them trying to get 50-odd years of stuff under control now makes me very glad that I've started the process sooner!
I think there is a strong generational difference in attitudes to stuff -- people who lived through times of scarcity got used to hoarding and it's hard to adjust to the fact that we're now in a time of massive surplus. (Obviously this is a massive overgeneralisation, but I think there's some truth in it, based on lots of anecdotal evidence -- if you don't think 'anecdotal evidence' is an oxymoron. ;-)
no subject
Ditto. I'm trying to be less possessive about them, though -- there are some I want to hang on to, but others where I reckon it's time someone else had a chance to read/own them. The books that have come in more recently are much easier to get rid of -- it's as if the longer you hang on to something, the more ownership accrues to it, until it ends up so heavy with ownership that you can't even lift it any more.
It's a burden on the planet in terms of the oil burnt and pollution generated in order to produce it.
Definitely.
This makes it easier a) Not to get stuff and b) to encourage people not to give me stuff.
Unfortunately I find it sometimes makes it harder to get rid of stuff -- I don't want things to go to waste, I don't want them to end up in landfill, so I end up hanging on to things for years trying to find the time/energy/opportunity to rehome them usefully, where I think most people would just bin them.
Sadly my old mum has not learnt this important lesson.
You have my sympathy. My mum has started trying to declutter, after decades of hoarding but also feeling miserable about the constant mess... (it sounds like your mum doesn't feel oppressed by her stuff, so maybe it isn't a problem for her -- only for you?). It helps that my dad has just taken early retirement, & he seems to be spending a lot of his spare time getting rid of stuff -- seeing them trying to get 50-odd years of stuff under control now makes me very glad that I've started the process sooner!
I think there is a strong generational difference in attitudes to stuff -- people who lived through times of scarcity got used to hoarding and it's hard to adjust to the fact that we're now in a time of massive surplus. (Obviously this is a massive overgeneralisation, but I think there's some truth in it, based on lots of anecdotal evidence -- if you don't think 'anecdotal evidence' is an oxymoron. ;-)