A post....
May. 10th, 2010 01:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
oceansedgeYes a real post... with honest to goodness content...
I've been meaning to write this for the past week, and its been bubbling away happily in my brain and is now nicely ripe...
Lets talk about things. Yes things. Real things. Not some vague ideological things, but things.
I have a mixed relationship with things. There is always a lot of discussion about things. We live in a materialistic world, and there's always a discussion or two about things. Talk about minimizing, how we don't need things, we can get along without things, we'd be happier without things.
And they're kinda right.
BUT.... they're also kinda wrong. They're also sometimes a bit arrogant too. I first started thinking about this post about things a couple weeks back when this post on Zen Habits finally owned up to it! The thing of it is - he's quite right - an obsession with NOT having things is still an obsession with things.
Then there's not having things as a method of self flagellation.cbpotts's post got me to thinking about that (although it goes much deeper than being just about things). I'm frequently guilty of the self flagellation thing - in many many ways I love shopping, I love acquiring things, but it's always 'for the house', 'for the kids', 'for the husband', 'needed for work' - I have to justify buying a thing. I don't just buy things for me, or because I want them, or if I do I have to find a justification for it, and then I know it's a wee bit of a white lie and I feel guilty for it. I tell James that he needs to buy me jewelry because I cannot bring myself to buy it for myself without a huge guilt thing. Even this post is a little bit about justifying buying things.
Anyway. The thing I meant to say about things was this: James and I buy a lot of things. We were and are in a pretty comfortable place in our lives. When he sold the house in Australia and we bought a house here - we bought a nice house. Neither of us had any things to speak of so we had to furnish it. It would have been nice to be able to buy more gently used things, I love flea markets, and junk shops and... but we haven't found a good selection of them here, and frankly when you have NO furniture, you need furniture now. I am nothing if not pragmatic.
Some might think we're too attached to our things. I have 40 cases of books I've been carrying around move to move for 15 years now. He spent a fortune shipping his books and DVDs and CD's over from the land down under. We're ridiculous pack rats who 18 months in the house still haven't completely unpacked. I have shopping lists and wish lists and project books full of cut outs. We do love our things.
I'd give all of it up in a heart beat.
See that's it. If we had a fire today and tomorrow there was nothing left of any of our things. Sure it would be unpleasant, but it would not devastate me, there is nothing here I can't live without accept my husband, my children, and my animals. Living beings matter. Things don't. I chose to have things because they make my life more pleasant and enjoyable, but would I cease being happy because I don't have them? No. I ooo and squeal over cookware, dishes, pens and stationery, and over tools and appliances and gardening bits and all sorts of silly things. Sometimes I buy them, sometimes I don't.
I've lived most of my life making do without. It wasn't always comfortable, but we made do, and we got on with it, and 20 yrs later I don't remember what we had to do without, I remember what we had - which was each other. I don't hang onto hate and I don't hang onto the sense of deprivation.
James and I have a funny relationship with money - we don't much care about it. When we have it we tend to spend it on making ours, and our children's lives more pleasant, when we don't have it, we make do without it, and we're still all having a good time. It's the same with things.
I love my home, I love my land rover, I love my things, but if I have to sell them to make do then I do and we get on. I'm a cat, and I don't do well with self deprivation - but it's not deprivation if it isn't what matters to you.
James and I moved to Newfoundland, not out of some hair shirt quest of 'opting out' of the whole rat race thing, but because we were never comfortable in ... we were never rat race people to begin with. We're considering moving even further out-port in large part because the city is getting too close. Our 'dream' lifestyle is one of even further self reliance - market gardens and living off the grid, and not giving up our creature comforts.
I don't know if this is a zen outlook, it may not be minimalist really, I do know that I'm comfortable with it. Sometimes I think we really are a pair of odd ducks, we don't really fit category. We're really not weird enough to belong with the weird folks, and not 'normal' enough to fit the normal people.
Ok - enough navel gazing.
Weekend was lovely, gardening done Saturday, spending a stormy Mom day in bed, and a delightful cola baked ham for dinner. It's been a bit of a lazy week this past week - having caught up all my email LJ computer duties this morning I'm going out to get us a cell phone plan that actually works this afternoon and the dog trainer is coming at 5pm for consultation.
This week will have to be more productive. I have projects. I have energy. Lets see how we make out.
Mr B from TC has been continuing to talk to me in email - although he has been busy. Possibility I may meet with him in Halifax towards the end of the month. (Yay for volunteering to take a later flight last weekend to Toronto when there was an oversell and getting a nice little $200 travel voucher!) There is no job per se, but I'm still very interested in discussing with him what opportunities there might be at TC and how I might get my foot in the door - as opposed to the federal government's impersonal generic web site application process which doesn't really work for my job category.
I've been meaning to write this for the past week, and its been bubbling away happily in my brain and is now nicely ripe...
Lets talk about things. Yes things. Real things. Not some vague ideological things, but things.
I have a mixed relationship with things. There is always a lot of discussion about things. We live in a materialistic world, and there's always a discussion or two about things. Talk about minimizing, how we don't need things, we can get along without things, we'd be happier without things.
And they're kinda right.
BUT.... they're also kinda wrong. They're also sometimes a bit arrogant too. I first started thinking about this post about things a couple weeks back when this post on Zen Habits finally owned up to it! The thing of it is - he's quite right - an obsession with NOT having things is still an obsession with things.
Then there's not having things as a method of self flagellation.
cbpotts's post got me to thinking about that (although it goes much deeper than being just about things). I'm frequently guilty of the self flagellation thing - in many many ways I love shopping, I love acquiring things, but it's always 'for the house', 'for the kids', 'for the husband', 'needed for work' - I have to justify buying a thing. I don't just buy things for me, or because I want them, or if I do I have to find a justification for it, and then I know it's a wee bit of a white lie and I feel guilty for it. I tell James that he needs to buy me jewelry because I cannot bring myself to buy it for myself without a huge guilt thing. Even this post is a little bit about justifying buying things. Anyway. The thing I meant to say about things was this: James and I buy a lot of things. We were and are in a pretty comfortable place in our lives. When he sold the house in Australia and we bought a house here - we bought a nice house. Neither of us had any things to speak of so we had to furnish it. It would have been nice to be able to buy more gently used things, I love flea markets, and junk shops and... but we haven't found a good selection of them here, and frankly when you have NO furniture, you need furniture now. I am nothing if not pragmatic.
Some might think we're too attached to our things. I have 40 cases of books I've been carrying around move to move for 15 years now. He spent a fortune shipping his books and DVDs and CD's over from the land down under. We're ridiculous pack rats who 18 months in the house still haven't completely unpacked. I have shopping lists and wish lists and project books full of cut outs. We do love our things.
I'd give all of it up in a heart beat.
See that's it. If we had a fire today and tomorrow there was nothing left of any of our things. Sure it would be unpleasant, but it would not devastate me, there is nothing here I can't live without accept my husband, my children, and my animals. Living beings matter. Things don't. I chose to have things because they make my life more pleasant and enjoyable, but would I cease being happy because I don't have them? No. I ooo and squeal over cookware, dishes, pens and stationery, and over tools and appliances and gardening bits and all sorts of silly things. Sometimes I buy them, sometimes I don't.
I've lived most of my life making do without. It wasn't always comfortable, but we made do, and we got on with it, and 20 yrs later I don't remember what we had to do without, I remember what we had - which was each other. I don't hang onto hate and I don't hang onto the sense of deprivation.
James and I have a funny relationship with money - we don't much care about it. When we have it we tend to spend it on making ours, and our children's lives more pleasant, when we don't have it, we make do without it, and we're still all having a good time. It's the same with things.
I love my home, I love my land rover, I love my things, but if I have to sell them to make do then I do and we get on. I'm a cat, and I don't do well with self deprivation - but it's not deprivation if it isn't what matters to you.
James and I moved to Newfoundland, not out of some hair shirt quest of 'opting out' of the whole rat race thing, but because we were never comfortable in ... we were never rat race people to begin with. We're considering moving even further out-port in large part because the city is getting too close. Our 'dream' lifestyle is one of even further self reliance - market gardens and living off the grid, and not giving up our creature comforts.
I don't know if this is a zen outlook, it may not be minimalist really, I do know that I'm comfortable with it. Sometimes I think we really are a pair of odd ducks, we don't really fit category. We're really not weird enough to belong with the weird folks, and not 'normal' enough to fit the normal people.
Ok - enough navel gazing.
Weekend was lovely, gardening done Saturday, spending a stormy Mom day in bed, and a delightful cola baked ham for dinner. It's been a bit of a lazy week this past week - having caught up all my email LJ computer duties this morning I'm going out to get us a cell phone plan that actually works this afternoon and the dog trainer is coming at 5pm for consultation.
This week will have to be more productive. I have projects. I have energy. Lets see how we make out.
Mr B from TC has been continuing to talk to me in email - although he has been busy. Possibility I may meet with him in Halifax towards the end of the month. (Yay for volunteering to take a later flight last weekend to Toronto when there was an oversell and getting a nice little $200 travel voucher!) There is no job per se, but I'm still very interested in discussing with him what opportunities there might be at TC and how I might get my foot in the door - as opposed to the federal government's impersonal generic web site application process which doesn't really work for my job category.
