Poll of the Day > You know, the opposite of hoarding is bad too.

(+) Yeah! (+)

I just got a new purple mattress. Its amazing.

But my girl wants to throw out the old mattress. Shes mad Im not letting her. Her dad is coming in the Fall to visit and Im not buying a new mattress again in a couple of months. Thats silly.

Shes always been quick to throw stuff out. This same scene keeps playing out where I look for something... cant find it... I ask her where is it... and she says she doesnt know with big wide eyes that have the words, Oh shit written all over them.

So shes mad at me cause I wont let her throw it out. But as I sit here typing this, she came over and placed a Coffee Caramel candy on my desk and walked away. Very reminiscent of how Charlie placed the everlasting gobstopper on Willy Wonkas desk. So now I kinda feel bad for complaining.



Edit: Fuck that! I dont feel bad! This caramel coffee tastes like caramel crap.

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HornedLion posted...

Edit: Fuck that! I dont feel bad! This caramel coffee tastes like caramel crap.

lmao

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I mean, I come from a garage sale/resale family so we never really threw stuff out unless it was ruined/trash

It was either sold or donated to thrift stores or am vets or something

I hate wasteful people

I guess that could also be considered the opposite of hoarding, although I thought this was a topic about minimalism. Honestly, minimalism isn't bad, certainly not compared to hoarding. And if you could fit everything you own (except your furniture) into a car, you'd be free to do almost anything at short notice.


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Zeus posted...

I guess that could also be considered the opposite of hoarding, although I thought this was a topic about minimalism. Honestly, minimalism isn't bad, certainly not compared to hoarding. And if you could fit everything you own (except your furniture) into a car, you'd be free to do almost anything at short notice.

This would be ideal and my retirement goal.

Maybe build a Skoolie.

https://youtu.be/aSSZzR6zllY


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My philosophy is this:

If you have something you don't immediately need, but can either think of a use for it "relatively soon", or it's something that you use commonly enough that you'll almost certainly need it again soon, then it's worth keeping.

If you have something you have no current use for, and feel like you should keep it on the off-chance that you might think of some use for it eventually, you're better off getting rid of it. Especially if it's something that isn't all that expensive in the first place. If you feel bad about "wasting" it; just find someone else who could potentially use it now and give it to them, or sell it/donated it to a thrift shop/charity shop/Goodwill/charity that does home pick-up (this doesn't really apply to mattresses - you probably should just throw those out).

Basically, if your house seems like it's filled with tons of odds and ends that you're keeping on the chance that you might need it someday, and 20 years can pass with that day never coming, then you're leaning into the wrong side of hoarding.



In her case, I wonder if she actually grew up with parents who were hoarders (either full-scale or just partially). Because from what I've seen people who grow up in that "OMG WE'VE GOT TOO MUCH CRAP!" sort of home tend to boomerang in the opposite direction and throw away as much as they can to keep things clean and spacious... or become the exact same sort of hoarder themselves (because they've had that "WE CAN'T WASTE ANYTHING WE MIGHT BE ABLE TO USE SOMEDAY!" mentality burned into their brain).

Economics can also play a role. People who grow up poor tend to be more inclined to try and keep everything to save future money, while people who grew up never really having to worry about money don't necessarily see the point of living in a packed warehouse to save a few dollars.
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HornedLion posted...

This would be ideal and my retirement goal.

Maybe build a Skoolie.

https://youtu.be/aSSZzR6zllY

I like the tiny home movement on a conceptual level, but at the same time it feels like the movement is essentially rebranding mobile/trailer homes. Were I to go with an unconventional living space, I think I'd prefer an underground home (although I'd want actual plumbing whereas some units use hippie nonsense; actually, that's one reason why I prefer underground homes to tiny homes)... or just a small fortress.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJzYH8MJHJo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RoGuvvzHY1A

Of course, if you're into traveling (especially if that's your retirement plan), a tiny home would be ideal since you'd have some of the comforts of a home while complete mobility.

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My friends are big collectors. CDs, art, video games, alcohol (one friend collects alcohol but doesnt drink it), movies, books.

I used to have these collections In HS and undergrad. Now Im more on the minimal side. I have some board games...even like 15 board games can be a huge collection when theyre $100-600 games.

Even practical crap, I try renting. Otherwise I go digital. I try to also not have a lot of specialized devices and more generalized devices.

ParanoidObsessive posted...

If you have something you don't immediately need, but can either think of a use for it "relatively soon", or it's something that you use commonly enough that you'll almost certainly need it again soon, then it's worth keeping.

If you have something you have no current use for, and feel like you should keep it on the off-chance that you might think of some use for it eventually, you're better off getting rid of it.

I found this doesn't work with video games for me.

Physical games get hard to find, and I get sudden urges to play a game years later. And when I actually really want to play a game, that's all I want to do to the point it impedes everything else. Especially if I can't, because I can't get the initial 'I gotta' over with.

Plus I don't have money to replace games accumulated over years, they're almost all gifts.

In general I've noticed that growing up poor and with the absolute weirdest luck has made me paranoid. Feels like right after I throw something away that's when someone asks if I have it because they need it for something.

Tiny homes look awesome, Id really like to get like a $30,000 kit and build my own one day.

But also I love living in a community, and I dont know Im of any tiny home communities. Even neighborhoods arent really a community. In apartments Ive always known a lot of people in my buildings and get to hang out with them at the pool and rooftop and stuff.

ParanoidObsessive posted...

My philosophy is this:

If you have something you don't immediately need, but can either think of a use for it "relatively soon", or it's something that you use commonly enough that you'll almost certainly need it again soon, then it's worth keeping.

If you have something you have no current use for, and feel like you should keep it on the off-chance that you might think of some use for it eventually, you're better off getting rid of it. Especially if it's something that isn't all that expensive in the first place. If you feel bad about "wasting" it; just find someone else who could potentially use it now and give it to them, or sell it/donated it to a thrift shop/charity shop/Goodwill/charity that does home pick-up (this doesn't really apply to mattresses - you probably should just throw those out).

Basically, if your house seems like it's filled with tons of odds and ends that you're keeping on the chance that you might need it someday, and 20 years can pass with that day never coming, then you're leaning into the wrong side of hoarding.

In her case, I wonder if she actually grew up with parents who were hoarders (either full-scale or just partially). Because from what I've seen people who grow up in that "OMG WE'VE GOT TOO MUCH CRAP!" sort of home tend to boomerang in the opposite direction and throw away as much as they can to keep things clean and spacious... or become the exact same sort of hoarder themselves (because they've had that "WE CAN'T WASTE ANYTHING WE MIGHT BE ABLE TO USE SOMEDAY!" mentality burned into their brain).

Economics can also play a role. People who grow up poor tend to be more inclined to try and keep everything to save future money, while people who grew up never really having to worry about money don't necessarily see the point of living in a packed warehouse to save a few dollars.

The psychology of that has always fascinated me, possibly because my immediate family had such different viewpoints regarding possessions. Then again, my folks grew up in households where the kids wound up having wildly different viewpoints regarding possessions as well (the only consistency is that the teachers & professors in the family tended to be hoarders). I had considered going into detail, but the result would be multiple super-long posts.

Otherwise there are different types/forms of hoarding. While the keeping potentially useful items could be derived from a poverty-mindset, clearly the motivation is different when it comes to needless items (and it's not always mental illness, although some forms of compulsive hoarding can have a mental illness component)

And personally I'd just throw out an old mattress. If I needed something for a guest room, I'd rather buy a new one. I wouldn't ask or expect a guest to sleep on a mattress I'd used. That said, I also don't believe in having a guest room since it invites people to stay for extended periods. If somebody is crashing for a few days, there's also the couch. I don't want them getting too comfortable.

ChaosAzeroth posted...

I found this doesn't work with video games for me.

Physical games get hard to find, and I get sudden urges to play a game years later. And when I actually really want to play a game, that's all I want to do to the point it impedes everything else. Especially if I can't, because I can't get the initial 'I gotta' over with.

Also this. Even when money isn't a factor, availability can be an issue. A lot of games, books, movies, etc, can become exceedingly hard to find/procure even in the digital age. And a lot of the things that are hard to get don't necessarily even wind up being expensive, they're just things that aren't being sold.

As a side note, I should mention that there are a lot of books I want to either re-read or finish reading where I'm *still* unable to even figure out their name, whether it's something I glanced at in a bookstore, had briefly borrowed, etc. In the case of some anthologies, I figure the rest of the stories are likely lousy anyway, but it's not much consolation.

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ChaosAzeroth posted...

I found this doesn't work with video games for me. Physical games get hard to find, and I get sudden urges to play a game years later.

To be fair, I kind of don't apply that same logic to video games, either (or books, or DVDs, or comics - just media in general, I suppose). I still have all my old PS1 games, and I'd probably still have my NES and SNES games as well if I hadn't traded them in as a poor teenager to get that PS1 in the first place. Even if I haven't played some of those games in more than 20 years.

I kind of see "collections" as being a separate thing from just possessions in general. I'm talking more the sort of people who will keep old furniture or appliances or way more clothes than any human will ever need "just in case", where it's kind of obvious to everyone they're never going to get used and are mostly only just taking up space, and it's only that sort of nebulous paranoia about being wasteful that is kind of compulsively forcing you to cling to it (which is what hoarding IS).

Then again, most collections usually don't take up THAT much space (books, DVDs, and games all fit on shelves), knick-knacks tend to get displayed as decorations on shelves/cabinets, etc, so it feels like they're not as much of a burden as other things. If you've got closets completely stacked full of stuff, attics, basements, or garages completely packed, or outright have stuff piled up in rooms, that's where you're sort of crossing the line of "Why are we keeping all this crap anyway?"



Zeus posted...

The psychology of that has always fascinated me, possibly because my immediate family had such different viewpoints regarding possessions. Then again, my folks grew up in households where the kids wound up having wildly different viewpoints regarding possessions as well (the only consistency is that the teachers & professors in the family tended to be hoarders).

My grandparents all lived through the Depression when they were younger, so it sort of imprinted on their personalities a bit. My parents were both from the earliest batch of Boomers (technically my father predated the Boomers because he was born about three months before the war ended), and growing up with those sorts of parents kind of imprinted the mentality on them (and consequently, both of them tended to grow up with pretty strong hoarding instincts - "NEVER throw anything away you can still use, if it's broken find a way to fix it, if you can't possibly use it give it to someone else.").

In my mom's case, it didn't help that she grew up relatively poor, so there was always the "We can't afford a new one, find a way to make the old one work" sort of mindset at work as well.

But the end result of that is that, after being married for about 40 years, they had a house full of crap that two separate people spent 40 years accumulating. My mother once complained because she said "I hate that it feels like I'm living in a warehouse sometimes", to which my reply was "That's because you refuse to get rid of anything." She's actually gotten better at getting rid of stuff after my father died (possibly because I badger her about it constantly), but she still has a LOT of stuff.

Of course, I grew up in that environment, and I definitely picked up a lot of those tendencies as well (I fully acknowledge there's a reason WHY I still have books I bought in the 1980s on my shelf, and why I still have most of my old VHS tapes in storage somewhere). But at the same time, I'm very much aware of that mentality, and I do try to fight against it as much as possible (which is WHY I have a philosophy about getting rid of things you know you don't need). When your brain is saying "I will never need this", but your heart is saying "BUT I WANT IT!", you have to know when to ignore your instincts and go with your logic. Or decades from now you will live in a packed warehouse, like the one from the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark. You may even have your own Ark.

Ironically, my paternal aunt (who grew up in the same sort of Depression Era-influenced house my father did) sort of went the opposite way, and kind of reacted to that mentality in her upbringing by being quick to throw almost everything out if it got in the way of a clean, spartan sort of home. She kind of hates clutter, and doesn't like feeling tied down by too much stuff she doesn't need.



Zeus posted...

That said, I also don't believe in having a guest room since it invites people to stay for extended periods. If somebody is crashing for a few days, there's also the couch. I don't want them getting too comfortable.

I have a guest room that's almost exclusively used for when my niece and nephew come to visit, or where some of the rare family I like can stay for a night or two to visit from out-of-town. Most of the time it's empty, though, and I wind up having to dust/clean it whenever someone is coming.

I don't worry that having a guest room will encourage long-term visits, because honestly, the only people I'm ever going to invite to stay at my house in the first place are people I like well enough that I wouldn't necessarily mind if they stayed longer (though if they were planning to stay for months at a time, I might start charging rent). And I'm blunt and open enough, and don't mind conflict, to the point where if someone DID come to stay for only a few days and then kept putting off leaving to the point where I was getting tired of them being there, I wouldn't really hesitate to tell them to get the fuck out. Or eventually just gathering up all their stuff and tossing it in the front yard and then locking the door behind them when they go out to get it. I've already disowned more than half of my family and cut off any number of ex-friends who pushed me too far for one reason or another, I'm not really afraid to shut people down for being assholes.

That being said, one of the advantages to being so willing to prune assholes out of your life is that, well, you don't really have any assholes left in your life. So at this point I can't imagine any of the friends/family I do still have being the sort of people who would take advantage of my hospitality in the first place, which makes it much easier to offer that hospitality without hesitation.

I've made the comment before that if my best friend called me at 3am telling me he killed someone and needed help to hide the body, I'd be over in about 10 minutes with a truck, some tarp, and a couple shovels. If he needs to crash at my house for a couple weeks for some reason, he's more than welcome.
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Zeus posted...

As a side note, I should mention that there are a lot of books I want to either re-read or finish reading where I'm *still* unable to even figure out their name, whether it's something I glanced at in a bookstore, had briefly borrowed, etc. In the case of some anthologies, I figure the rest of the stories are likely lousy anyway, but it's not much consolation.

Oh the books step parents have thrown away of mine over the years.

I used to have quite the collection of old horror books. A great fantasy boom collection too.

I feel this.

ParanoidObsessive posted...

To be fair, I kind of don't apply that same logic to video games, either (or books, or DVDs, or comics - just media in general, I suppose). I still have all my old PS1 games, and I'd probably still have my NES and SNES games as well if I hadn't traded them in as a poor teenager to get that PS1 in the first place. Even if I haven't played some of those games in more than 20 years.

tbh, I'm not entirely sure I've ever gotten rid of a game, well, except maybe whatever was destroyed in 1992 by an act of *another* god.

DVDs I've probably got rid of some and then books likely quite a few.

ParanoidObsessive posted...

I kind of see "collections" as being a separate thing from just possessions in general. I'm talking more the sort of people who will keep old furniture or appliances or way more clothes than any human will ever need "just in case", where it's kind of obvious to everyone they're never going to get used and are mostly only just taking up space, and it's only that sort of nebulous paranoia about being wasteful that is kind of compulsively forcing you to cling to it (which is what hoarding IS).

Then again, most collections usually don't take up THAT much space (books, DVDs, and games all fit on shelves), knick-knacks tend to get displayed as decorations on shelves/cabinets, etc, so it feels like they're not as much of a burden as other things. If you've got closets completely stacked full of stuff, attics, basements, or garages completely packed, or outright have stuff piled up in rooms, that's where you're sort of crossing the line of "Why are we keeping all this crap anyway?"

I'm not sure my collecting is materially different from hoarding, although it's nice to know you give collecting a free pass. Virtually all my clutter is related to games, books, movies, or knick-knacks.

ParanoidObsessive posted...

My grandparents all lived through the Depression when they were younger, so it sort of imprinted on their personalities a bit. My parents were both from the earliest batch of Boomers (technically my father predated the Boomers because he was born about three months before the war ended), and growing up with those sorts of parents kind of imprinted the mentality on them (and consequently, both of them tended to grow up with pretty strong hoarding instincts - "NEVER throw anything away you can still use, if it's broken find a way to fix it, if you can't possibly use it give it to someone else.").

My relatives who lived through the Great Depression never really seemed to keep all that much around their apartments, although it's possible that they got rid most of their crap before wound up in those then-current apartments. And while they were frugal when it came to getting rid of food, I'm not sure how much of that was from the Depression vs having come from a country/culture with different views regarding that or simply acquiring a few of those habits from the people they hung out with.

ParanoidObsessive posted...

But the end result of that is that, after being married for about 40 years, they had a house full of crap that two separate people spent 40 years accumulating. My mother once complained because she said "I hate that it feels like I'm living in a warehouse sometimes", to which my reply was "That's because you refuse to get rid of anything." She's actually gotten better at getting rid of stuff after my father died (possibly because I badger her about it constantly), but she still has a LOT of stuff.

I think that's probably typical for any family, even if there's a matter of degrees.

ParanoidObsessive posted...

I've made the comment before that if my best friend called me at 3am telling me he killed someone and needed help to hide the body, I'd be over in about 10 minutes with a truck, some tarp, and a couple shovels. If he needs to crash at my house for a couple weeks for some reason, he's more than welcome.

Speaking of, when my brother and I lived together, he did have phone calls in the early AM from friends asking if he could come over with a shovel. Sometimes he'd say it was about a pet, other times he'd joke that he would tell me but he didn't want to make me an accessory after the fact. I can't recall his friends ever going that far out of the way for *him*, though. The last time he was up visiting, one of his closest friends wouldn't even drive out from Buffalo to see him (which is obviously a hike, but still...)

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HornedLion posted...

I just got a new purple mattress. Its amazing.

But my girl wants to throw out the old mattress. Shes mad Im not letting her. Her dad is coming in the Fall to visit and Im not buying a new mattress again in a couple of months. Thats silly.

Shes always been quick to throw stuff out. This same scene keeps playing out where I look for something... cant find it... I ask her where is it... and she says she doesnt know with big wide eyes that have the words, Oh shit written all over them.

So shes mad at me cause I wont let her throw it out. But as I sit here typing this, she came over and placed a Coffee Caramel candy on my desk and walked away. Very reminiscent of how Charlie placed the everlasting gobstopper on Willy Wonkas desk. So now I kinda feel bad for complaining.



Edit: Fuck that! I dont feel bad! This caramel coffee tastes like caramel crap.

Don't eat it. She's trying to get one of your fillings to come out so you have to get a new one.

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Against enormous weights, and with mad howls they rolled the stones at one another. Then in haste they rolled them back, one party shouting out:
Why do you hoard? and the other: Why do you waste?

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ParanoidObsessive posted...

In her case, I wonder if she actually grew up with parents who were hoarders (either full-scale or just partially). Because from what I've seen people who grow up in that "OMG WE'VE GOT TOO MUCH CRAP!" sort of home tend to boomerang in the opposite direction and throw away as much as they can to keep things clean and spacious...

The reverse can also happen. My dad's parents moved around a lot when he was younger and made him throw out a lot of his toys and whatnot each time they did (in retrospect, they had a few abusive tendencies, and that was among them), and the end result of that was to turn him into quite the packrat, accumulating stuff and being very reluctant to throw it out, as well as being adamant that he'd never force his own children to throw out stuff they wanted to keep. I don't think he ever reached full-on hoarder status, and he did end up finding some degree of balance there, but he definitely erred toward the side of hoarding because of his background.

ChaosAzeroth posted...

I found this doesn't work with video games for me.

Physical games get hard to find, and I get sudden urges to play a game years later. And when I actually really want to play a game, that's all I want to do to the point it impedes everything else. Especially if I can't, because I can't get the initial 'I gotta' over with.

Fortunately, games are pretty easy to hoard without taking over your life. A single $50 bookshelf from Ikea will hold a few hundred easily, especially now that discs in cases are the norm, and that can very easily be made to look organized enough to be a collection and not just a hoard (the line between the two can be rather thin sometimes). There are absolutely games in my collection that could spontaneously vanish tonight and I'd never notice without taking inventory because I'll probably never want to play them again, but keeping them around just in case I get that prediction wrong isn't really inconveniencing me.

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adjl posted...

Fortunately, games are pretty easy to hoard without taking over your life. A single $50 bookshelf from Ikea will hold a few hundred easily, especially now that discs in cases are the norm, and that can very easily be made to look organized enough to be a collection and not just a hoard (the line between the two can be rather thin sometimes). There are absolutely games in my collection that could spontaneously vanish tonight and I'd never notice without taking inventory because I'll probably never want to play them again, but keeping them around just in case I get that prediction wrong isn't really inconveniencing me.

I mean this is true, fair.

My point had more to do with the if it doesn't bring you joy now/use in the near future.

ChaosAzeroth posted...

I mean this is true, fair.

My point had more to do with the if it doesn't bring you joy now/use in the near future.

Indeed, and it's quite a valid point. I think pieces of entertainment are in general kind of exempt from that because they're so individually unique and potentially irreplaceable.

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