Things
Inspired by general cleaning in the house. My wife wanted to throw everything up, and I desperately resisted. The questions fell like this: “Why do you need an old one, disassembled by sidir?”, “Why do you need old phrack prints, some dysasms, etc.?”, “Why do you need old jeans and sneakers with a hole?”, “Why do you need boxes from laptop / phone? ". In the end, we threw out a few huge bags of trash.
And today I was reading the rss tape and came across an essay by Paul Graham. And I decided to translate an essay of a smart man. Surely my translation contains many typos, errors and inaccuracies. I am pleased to receive your comments.
Original: www.paulgraham.com/stuff.html
Paul Graham "Stuff"
I have a lot of things. Like most people in America. In fact, the poorer a person is, the more things seem to him. Hardly anyone is so poor that he cannot afford a full yard of old cars. [The logic is not clear; apparently old cars in America are really cheap;]
But it was not always so. Things were rare and valuable. You can still see signs of this. For example, in my home in Cambridge, which was built in 1876, there were no closets in the bedrooms. In those days, all the belongings entered the dresser. And a few decades ago there were still few things. When I looked at the photographs of 1970, I was surprised at how empty the house was. When I was a child, it seemed to me that I had a large fleet of toy cars. But it will seem tiny compared to the number of toys of my nephew. My little cars and my corgi [dog breed] occupied a third of the bed. In my nephew's room, a bed is the only free space.
Things have fallen in price much, but our attitude towards them has not changed. We overestimate things.
When I had no money, it was a problem. I felt poor and things seemed valuable to me. So I instinctively accumulated them. Friends forgot something when moving. I found something on the street in the "trash night" (be wary of everything that you consider to be "quite decent") ["trash night" - the night before garbage collection, when you can take something from the containers of your neighbors]. I found something almost new for a tenth of the price of a garage sale. And voila - you have more things.
In fact, these free or almost free items were not discounted products because they cost even less than their cost. Most of the trash that I had accumulated was useless because I did not need it.
I did not understand that the value of the new acquisition was not the difference between the price in the store and the fact that I paid. The main thing is the benefit I received. Things are strikingly not a liquid investment. After all, if you do not plan to sell this valuable thing that you received so cheaply, then what difference does it make if it is “profitable”? The only way to benefit from this thing is to use it. If you are not using a thing now, you will probably never use it.
Trading companies spent lump sums, teaching us to see things as valuable. Still, it is more correct to consider things useless. In fact, it is even more than useless, because as soon as you have accumulated trash, it begins to own you. I know one married couple who cannot move to another city because they cannot afford a big enough house for all things. The house does not belong to them; he belongs to things.
And if you are not very organized, then a house full of things can be very depressing. Heaped room sucks all the good mood. Obviously, one of the reasons is the lack of free space in the cluttered room. But it's not only that. I think that people constantly scan their surroundings for the construction of the inner world based on the surrounding world. The more complex the world for analysis, the less energy for sound thinking. Cluttered room without exaggeration exhausting.
(It is possible to explain why the disorder does not disturb children as adults. Children are less susceptible. They build a rough model of their environment and this takes less energy.)
The first time I realized the uselessness of things when I lived in Italy for a year. I took with me only a large backpack. I left the rest of the things with my landlady in the attic. And you know what? All I lacked is a pair of books. By the end of the year, I did not even remember that in general I was stored in the attic.
And yet, when I returned, I took the box with things from the attic. Throw out a wonderful disc phone? One day I might need this.
It really hurts to remember not that I have accumulated all these useless things, but that I often spent urgently need money for things that I do not need.
Why did I do this? Because people whose work is to sell, they know their business very well. Companies that have averaged 25 years have spent years trying to figure out how to make you spend money. They made the process of buying things so pleasant that “shopping” became a type of recreation.
How can you protect yourself from this? Very simple. Although I am rather skeptical, but their tricks worked when I was thirty. The only way that should work is to ask yourself before buying: “Will this thing make my life noticeably better?”.
My girlfriend cured herself of being addicted to buying things by simply asking herself when buying things: “Am I going to wear this all the time?” If she could not convince herself that the thing she was buying would be the thing she was wearing all the time, then she did not buy it. I think it will work with any purchase. Before you buy something, ask yourself: will I use it all the time? Or do I just like this thing? Or, worse, is it just a bargain?
The worst things of this kind are things that you do not use often, because they are too good. Nothing owns you more like fragile items. For example, the Chinese service, which is in many families. Its value is much less than the pleasure of using it, but everyone should be especially careful not to break it.
Another way is to think about the total cost of ownership of the thing. The amount of the purchase is just the beginning. You are going to think about this thing, maybe for the rest of your life. Every thing you possess takes energy from you. Many give more than take. Others are not worth keeping them.
I stopped collecting things. Except for books. Books are a little different. Books are more like a fluid than a specific item. Of course, it’s not very convenient to keep several thousand books, although you will become a local celebrity. But besides books, I try to actively avoid things. If I want to spend money, then I always prefer the service of goods.
I do not claim that I have achieved “Zen Renunciation” of material values. I am talking about more earthly things. There have been historical changes, and I realized that. Things were valuable, but now they are not.
In industrialized countries, the same thing happened with food in the mid-twentieth century. When food became cheaper (or we became richer; it’s the same thing), the bigger problem was eating too much than eating too little. The same situation is with things. For most people, rich or poor, things have become a burden.
If you carry a load without knowing it, life will be better when you understand it. Imagine that you carry a five pound load on your ankle, and then suddenly get rid of it.
original on my blog: m0sia.ru/p_graham_stuff
')
I would like to go even further in the thoughts of Paul. If in the whole article to replace the word “thing” with “information”, the essence will not change.
Information has fallen in price much (meaning access to the Internet), but our attitude towards it has not changed. Many of us download music that you will never listen to, unnecessary e-books, videos from YouTube. Many store podcasts. Why don't we ask ourselves the question: “Do we need this information? Will it make our life really better? ”We spend time on useless forums and idle talk that do not give us any return. Even joy or satisfaction. When I was small, I had a 800 megabyte hard drive and several CDs. Now I have 500 gigabytes and hundreds of disks. And this is all trash, which I probably will not use.
I think I'm not the only one.
And today I was reading the rss tape and came across an essay by Paul Graham. And I decided to translate an essay of a smart man. Surely my translation contains many typos, errors and inaccuracies. I am pleased to receive your comments.
Original: www.paulgraham.com/stuff.html
Paul Graham "Stuff"
I have a lot of things. Like most people in America. In fact, the poorer a person is, the more things seem to him. Hardly anyone is so poor that he cannot afford a full yard of old cars. [The logic is not clear; apparently old cars in America are really cheap;]
But it was not always so. Things were rare and valuable. You can still see signs of this. For example, in my home in Cambridge, which was built in 1876, there were no closets in the bedrooms. In those days, all the belongings entered the dresser. And a few decades ago there were still few things. When I looked at the photographs of 1970, I was surprised at how empty the house was. When I was a child, it seemed to me that I had a large fleet of toy cars. But it will seem tiny compared to the number of toys of my nephew. My little cars and my corgi [dog breed] occupied a third of the bed. In my nephew's room, a bed is the only free space.
Things have fallen in price much, but our attitude towards them has not changed. We overestimate things.
When I had no money, it was a problem. I felt poor and things seemed valuable to me. So I instinctively accumulated them. Friends forgot something when moving. I found something on the street in the "trash night" (be wary of everything that you consider to be "quite decent") ["trash night" - the night before garbage collection, when you can take something from the containers of your neighbors]. I found something almost new for a tenth of the price of a garage sale. And voila - you have more things.
In fact, these free or almost free items were not discounted products because they cost even less than their cost. Most of the trash that I had accumulated was useless because I did not need it.
I did not understand that the value of the new acquisition was not the difference between the price in the store and the fact that I paid. The main thing is the benefit I received. Things are strikingly not a liquid investment. After all, if you do not plan to sell this valuable thing that you received so cheaply, then what difference does it make if it is “profitable”? The only way to benefit from this thing is to use it. If you are not using a thing now, you will probably never use it.
Trading companies spent lump sums, teaching us to see things as valuable. Still, it is more correct to consider things useless. In fact, it is even more than useless, because as soon as you have accumulated trash, it begins to own you. I know one married couple who cannot move to another city because they cannot afford a big enough house for all things. The house does not belong to them; he belongs to things.
And if you are not very organized, then a house full of things can be very depressing. Heaped room sucks all the good mood. Obviously, one of the reasons is the lack of free space in the cluttered room. But it's not only that. I think that people constantly scan their surroundings for the construction of the inner world based on the surrounding world. The more complex the world for analysis, the less energy for sound thinking. Cluttered room without exaggeration exhausting.
(It is possible to explain why the disorder does not disturb children as adults. Children are less susceptible. They build a rough model of their environment and this takes less energy.)
The first time I realized the uselessness of things when I lived in Italy for a year. I took with me only a large backpack. I left the rest of the things with my landlady in the attic. And you know what? All I lacked is a pair of books. By the end of the year, I did not even remember that in general I was stored in the attic.
And yet, when I returned, I took the box with things from the attic. Throw out a wonderful disc phone? One day I might need this.
It really hurts to remember not that I have accumulated all these useless things, but that I often spent urgently need money for things that I do not need.
Why did I do this? Because people whose work is to sell, they know their business very well. Companies that have averaged 25 years have spent years trying to figure out how to make you spend money. They made the process of buying things so pleasant that “shopping” became a type of recreation.
How can you protect yourself from this? Very simple. Although I am rather skeptical, but their tricks worked when I was thirty. The only way that should work is to ask yourself before buying: “Will this thing make my life noticeably better?”.
My girlfriend cured herself of being addicted to buying things by simply asking herself when buying things: “Am I going to wear this all the time?” If she could not convince herself that the thing she was buying would be the thing she was wearing all the time, then she did not buy it. I think it will work with any purchase. Before you buy something, ask yourself: will I use it all the time? Or do I just like this thing? Or, worse, is it just a bargain?
The worst things of this kind are things that you do not use often, because they are too good. Nothing owns you more like fragile items. For example, the Chinese service, which is in many families. Its value is much less than the pleasure of using it, but everyone should be especially careful not to break it.
Another way is to think about the total cost of ownership of the thing. The amount of the purchase is just the beginning. You are going to think about this thing, maybe for the rest of your life. Every thing you possess takes energy from you. Many give more than take. Others are not worth keeping them.
I stopped collecting things. Except for books. Books are a little different. Books are more like a fluid than a specific item. Of course, it’s not very convenient to keep several thousand books, although you will become a local celebrity. But besides books, I try to actively avoid things. If I want to spend money, then I always prefer the service of goods.
I do not claim that I have achieved “Zen Renunciation” of material values. I am talking about more earthly things. There have been historical changes, and I realized that. Things were valuable, but now they are not.
In industrialized countries, the same thing happened with food in the mid-twentieth century. When food became cheaper (or we became richer; it’s the same thing), the bigger problem was eating too much than eating too little. The same situation is with things. For most people, rich or poor, things have become a burden.
If you carry a load without knowing it, life will be better when you understand it. Imagine that you carry a five pound load on your ankle, and then suddenly get rid of it.
original on my blog: m0sia.ru/p_graham_stuff
')
I would like to go even further in the thoughts of Paul. If in the whole article to replace the word “thing” with “information”, the essence will not change.
Information has fallen in price much (meaning access to the Internet), but our attitude towards it has not changed. Many of us download music that you will never listen to, unnecessary e-books, videos from YouTube. Many store podcasts. Why don't we ask ourselves the question: “Do we need this information? Will it make our life really better? ”We spend time on useless forums and idle talk that do not give us any return. Even joy or satisfaction. When I was small, I had a 800 megabyte hard drive and several CDs. Now I have 500 gigabytes and hundreds of disks. And this is all trash, which I probably will not use.
I think I'm not the only one.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/31198/
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