Living With Less (Gear) - NYT Article

[ampguy]

Lots of good stuff here. I collect free ebooks of simplifying 😉

But have you ever needed something and had to go pay big bucks for something you gave away or donated a few months back? It's sometimes hard to know if you'll need something in the future.

If previous generations dumped their camera gear that wasn't used for 3 or 6 months like some of these simplification books suggest, there would be fewer nice old cameras, and prices would be high, and heavy metals would be in the landfills and ocean.

 

[Calzone]

I've know proverty, depravity and hunger so becoming a hoarder became natural instinct. A friend of mine jokingly said that I single-handedly downsized a major aerospace company with all the stuff I acquired at the end of the Cold War. Also know that I also garbage picked and had a lot of raw "Art Material," car parts, antiques and just plain cool objects.

My girl explained to me why I hoard and it has taken me over a decade and a half to cull down. The last cull down happened just over a year ago when "Maggie" and I decided to downsize into a one bedroom Madhattan apartment. We literally got rid of 2/3rd of all our possessions, many unneeded.

I still am marked by poverty, but now I'm a different kind of consumer. I enjoy luxury goods, and I buy things that I expect to keep for a lifetime of use so I always buy with quality in mind. Downsizing has been very liberating. I found that I carried around a lot of stuff like grief that remained unprocessed, and now I feel rather free and liberated.

With my cameras I use them all, and I take ownership that I have too many to be practical, but to me they are still treasure that I want to keep the rest of my life. The analogy is that I'm much happier enjoying the luxury of a smaller space that governs consumption. In a way life has become more care free and less restricted.

Cal

 

[Jerevan]

Like Calzone, I've known a sort of poverty in childhood but I've also seen up close how people are borrowing money they don't have to in order to live a life they can't afford in the long run (like buying a Ferrari but not having the money to maintain it, that sort of thing).

I've had run-ins with overconsumption myself, and I still do, but with age and hopefully wisdom I've found that more does not always equal happiness. In the long term perspective, I am downsizing and I feel happy about having less, which to me means less OCD and less choice angst.

 

[noimmunity]

I have to say, in reading the article, although I am really sympathetic with the idea of living with less (and in fact have gone quite far beyond what the author describes--and in many more ways than he describes), I still had the feeling that the author has replaced one form of materialism for another. I see it in that thirst for "experience" and "adventure"...

In Tibetan Vajrayana Buddhism, there are three forms of materialism. The first is materialism of form. We look for something outside ourselves to relieve us of all the feelings, especially unpleasant ones, that we have in our hearts. We look for security from these external things, yet inevitably end up disappointed.

The second is the materialism of speech, beliefs, convictions, ideas. Actually, these operate in the same way as the first kind.

The third type is the materialism of the mind. We are still trying to avoid something, or to find some ultimate way to shield ourselves, and so we look to special states, like love. Or travel. (Or even spiritual discipline).

In the end, the best way to 'live with less' begins by embracing whatever arises--the uncertainty, the fear, the boredom, the joy--and not rejecting or identifying with any of it.

But yeah, consuming less, expecting less, demanding less...these are all important ways of becoming gentler to your self and others.

Recommended reading: Pema Chödron. 2010. Places That Scare You: A Guide To Fearlessness in Difficult Times. Boston: Shambala.

 

[matt_mcg2]

I've purged a lot of camera gear. I'm basically down to one film SLR, one rangefinder, one TLR, one folder, and a couple of compacts. And I don't have a lot of lenses, either. Most of those I bought cheaply and if I sold them I'd certainly make a decent profit, and I don't have a huge amount of cash sunk in photography. Despite that, I still get tempted to downsize even further. There's something very attractive about the idea of just having a couple of cameras. Maybe just the TLR and a compact, even.

However, the key obstacle to getting more photography done, and being happier with the photographs I take isn't simplifying gear. It's having more free time. And decluttering isn't going to get me that.

Matt

 

[paulfish4570]

despite the silly environmental rant, i enjoyed the point of the article, which is unchecked greed, pure and simple, the drive to fill the big empty spot in our souls with ... stuff.
that aside, my bride and i have lived in less than 700 square feet of dwelling for more than seven years, the past two years in a 678-square-foot concrete block cabin. we are slowly but surely getting rid of stuff in storage.
i could put every molecule of my personal stuff - short of furniture and vehicle - in a small closet.
a life unencumbered by greed is a good thing. (not that i don't have occasional urges for photographic and hunting and bushcrafting stuff, all of it small and simple) 🙂

 

[FrankS]

Yeah, that whole environmental stuff is just a silly fad.

 

[paulfish4570]

frank, i was making a point of the stated reason for simplification given by the author of the column. it is baloney coming from a fellow habitually jetting around the world. my nose is hyper sensitive to the aroma of baloney, no matter which side of the environmental issue i happen to be. 🙂

there should be no default setting for simplifying life. simplification is its on reward - for everyone.

 

[Pioneer]

I am most certainly a hoarder. I used to pick up nuts and bolts and put them in jars in case I needed them. I probably ended up with enough nuts and bolts to build my own car. Fortunately I learned to cut back on the nuts and bolts and I am definitely on board with this simplifying thing. I am preparing to simplify my life yet again. But before I start I have to "simplify" my garage from the last purge as I can't even park the car right now. 🙂

 

[Jamie Pillers]

Thanks for the link, Dave. This is a message always worth repeating to ourselves. The waves of "consume" messages washing over us everyday can bury us in completely unnecessay stuff. And then caring for all this stuff just sucks energy from us that could be used for living.

 

[williamkazak]

Interesting topic. It is hard to choose what to sell and what to donate. Personal nostalga enters in with all the memories of a pleasant association with the material goods in question. Should I keep my old baseball glove and my brothers too? Maybe someday, someone will want to play catch with me and that old glove served me well after it was "broken in".

 

[zuiko85]

Regarding cameras, well I love the purely mechanical ones. Lost all interest in cameras when they started to have electronic timing of the shutter and became battery dependent. Still have an (irrational?) dislike for modern cameras, digital included. So I can't resist playing with my toys. And "playing" is all it is. I'm no artist, that's for sure.

 

[kxl]

My gear-owning history has been and continious to be "Hegelian."

Thesis: You need gear for each and every situation

Antithesis: One body-one lens is all you need.

Synthesis: 1 format only: 1 DSLR, 1 film SLR, RF and digital back for M-mount lenses

Unfortunately, this current state of synthesis forms a new thesis and the cycle starts all over again. :bang:

 

[Ranchu]

My honest reaction is that the NYT is one of many propaganda organs of the elites. They've spent the social security trust fund created by greenspan and reagan in 1984 on ass, wars, tax cuts, and the bailing out of parasitic thieves. That was always the plan, seems to me. So now the rest of us gotta get to learnin austerity so they can welsh on paying it back. This article is how junior yuppie writer guy pays the rent these days. Paid bootlicking, nothing more.

 

[daveleo]

This is slightly off-the topic . . .

Collectors sometimes get a bad rap for buying stuff they (we) don't use. I have a modest collection of (cheaper consumer grade) cameras under glass in the parlor. I get "This stuff is rotting away here doing nothing, why don't you sell it to someone who would use them?".

My answers are (1) I am using them - as objects of machine art - just not as operational cameras (2) having bought these in the used marketplace (and at fleamarkets), I don't call this hobby "consumerism" - they already existed and basically nobody wanted them (3) I don't believe that my owning 60 out-of-date cameras is harming anyone or the environment.

So . . . that's my lecture to protect the collectors of this world from getting beat up for . . . um . . . collecting stuff.

 

[texchappy]

(Evil Thought)
I hope this catches on... it will mean a lot of cameras flooding the market and driving down the prices 😉

 

[shadowfox]

To consume something is to satisfy self.
The cure to self-satisfying urges is to understand more about self and what is the purpose of the life that this "self" carries.

Some believe that self is the highest being one has to serve. Thus searching in vain for means to satisfy it. Influential people, like King Solomon wrote a lot about the pursuit to satisfy self. In the end he concluded: Vanity, all is vanity.

Others believe that there is a higher being that, when is in communion with our self, we find out true happiness in this life and beyond.

Whatever it is that you believe, it started from there. From there, perspectives, decision, and finally actions. In that order.

 

[bigeye]

I see this as a public confession that I believe employs a writing device to an effect that I do not feel comfortable with and one that I have never used. Rarely have I seen the use of more "I"s in a single article, within the breadth of reading I have done.

- Charlie

 

[Roger Hicks]

To consume something is to satisfy self.
The cure to self-satisfying urges is to understand more about self and what is the purpose of the life that this "self" carries.

Some believe that self is the highest being one has to serve. Thus searching in vain for means to satisfy it. Influential people, like King Solomon wrote a lot about the pursuit to satisfy self. In the end he concluded: Vanity, all is vanity.

Others believe that there is a higher being that, when is in communion with our self, we find out true happiness in this life and beyond.

Whatever it is that you believe, it started from there. From there, perspectives, decision, and finally actions. In that order.

Eh? I can't actually see the truth in much this. But then, it's not only on religion we disagree. In another thread, unless, I am mistaken, you said something about 'the pendulum' swinging away from a 'sense of entitlement'. Others might say that we hope to see it swing away from the greed and inequality of the present day. And there are plenty who would query 'this life and beyond'.

There comes a point where philosophy segues into either religion (including the secular religion of consumerism) or platitude. The only sentence with which I can wholeheartedly agree is, "Whatever it is that you believe, it started from there" -- so I would heartily concur that we should examine carefully what we believe, and why.

Addendum: As I understand it, modern scholarship suggests that it may be something of a stretch to identify Solmon with The Preacher (Ecclesiastes 1:2, "Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities; all is vanity").

Cheers,

R.

 

[johannielscom]

Less = more is my creed for some time now but unfortunately I'm the only one in my family. And, the other three aren't very tidy in general either.

So most of the time I spend around stuff from others. I care about them (and also for them) but do not care about their stuff... 😱

I've shrunk my gear to the minimum: two Ricoh GXR kits, two Leica II's, two 120 rangefinders, one scanner. One bicycle, one fountain pen, one camera bag, one documents bag. One pair of mountain boots, two winter coats, two suits. Oh, and one bottle of scotch (at a time) 😀😀