Three weeks ago, I was in Santiago de Chile for the Global Voices Summit. The day I came back to Venezuela, I received a text message when at the airport in Caracas, which basically said I needed to move from the city where I'm living, radically change my habits, my friends, my routines and my career, all that in a timeframe of two weeks or so, because I had just received the job offer of my life. And this is me, telling you from the middle of my battlefield livingroom, with half of my life packed in boxes and the other half lying somewhere in the disaster, that when opportunities came, we shall not let them pass.
I've been living in the city where I'm now, by seven years or so. In those years, I went to the university, I obtained my law degree, I made friends and fell in love, and I found a job that I both loved and hated. Also, I've accumulated so much useless stuff, that I now need like dozens of boxes in order to pack all my belongings and move to a new home. And I just wanna set everything in fire, you guys, because packing all that useless stuff feels only like weight upon my shoulders that is not supposed to be there.
However, this make me think about things I hadn't thought before, in my previous movings. In the very first place, that we all buy things that we don't need because of stuff like publicity and plain consumism. That the system we live in, has made us think that we actually need things that we don't, like workout machines we're never going to use and insanely high heels. (I don't have any of that things, but you get the point).
Secondly, that things are now made in order to be disposable. A cellphone from 1998, I remember, could last three or four years and still work perfectly. In the last three years, I've changed my cellphone four or five times, and not because I'm a geek that need to have the very last thing that came into the market, but because they just stop working. They're made that way in order that I have to buy a new one as soon as possible.
And thirdly, that all that consumism only lead to large amounts of garbage, that could be cutted to half if we only understood that we don't need all that shit. And I'm not talking about a life of minimalism and zen attitude -although I wish I had the guts to do that-, I'm just talking about being realistic on what one actually needs. Because, I'll tell you, the truth is that I might have eight or ten different lipsticks, but I only wear one of them, and that's when I even remember to put on some lipstick.
It's not my plan to make this random rambling of mine a philosophic study on human behavior. But that's what's keeping my mind this week, and I'm certainly going to be writing this same things in my own blog. Because I keep thinking, how less I could have contaminated the world if I only would have kept myself from buying all this useless stuff that I now have to pack?
The featured image belongs to K2D2vaca and it's under a Creative Commons License.
Congratulations on your new job!
Hi Marianne,
Funny, this morning I spoke with my girlfriend, who is also in the middle of moving houses, and we suddenly realized that we both have never bought a new piece of furniture. Always everything second hand.
Then I started to think about how to change the image of second hand stuff. Like with recycling of glass, there has to be a way of making people more proud to buy second hand instead of new.
The trick is how to come up with an idea of establishing that.
Lol, my father uses his good old phone from 1998 and I keep on convincing him to change it but he is so reluctant! I guess it’s rather myself who should be following his ways
Congrats for your new job Marianne!
My friend is moving to another country now, and she has the same problem as you. To make use of some of her stuff accumulated during her life here in London, she is giving away her clothes and books she doesn’t need anymore to charity. This is a good system, as you bring your unwanted stuff to, say, British Heart Foundation, they sell it, and the money goes for a good cause. It’s a win-win.
But I agree with you on this plague of consumerism. This Want Culture is a huge component of the process of self-destruction.. As Johan says, second hand deserves more attention. In my country, for example, there is not a single second hand bookshop, at least not to my knowledge. Given that books there are very expensive, people either cut more trees by buying new ones, or don’t read at all. Second hand stuff is seen as stuff for poor, and buying it doesn’t add to one’s social status. Shame.
Helena, when I had my old big Nokia, people were making fun of me! Seriously, they would laugh when I was using it. Unfortunately, I had to get rid of it cause it started turning itself off whenever it wanted, but it lasted for at least 5 years!
Marianne, your post reminded me about a book that I read when I was studying advertising in university. “99 francs” (or 14,99 Euros) is the story of a French copywriter working for a big advertising agency in Paris and it is a huge criticism brought to the advertising industry that makes us believe we need stuff that we had never thought about before he saw the commercial on TV and that happy family life means eating strawberry and whipped cream with your (always) lovely thin wife and your 2 children who are, almost always, a boy and a girl.
It’s true what you are saying Marianne, things are built to be consumed and thrown away at the speed of light. I still remember the sports shoes that my late grandfather bought for my brother when he was little: he wore them for like 10 year. And he was a heavy soccer player. Can you imagine that now, just 15 years later?
I think this speed has also given the economy the crazy growth we all thought it would last forever.
I never thought about second hand products as about the way to go until I read Johan’s comment today. And that is because in my country, just as in Giedre’s, only really poor people buy from there. And when it comes to clothes they make sure to wash it many times at high temperatures to make sure they don’t get any disease from those used clothes. I am curious when “old” is going to be the new “new” in my country and when wearing used clothes will make you cool among your friends.
Books > donate to school library (and next time better borrow from a municipal library instead of buying),
Clothes > to Red Cross,
Anything of value > to e-bay (you can’t imagine what people are ready to buy, if it’s cheap),
All the rest of no value > to the garbage.
That’s how I, after 30 years of living in one place, managed to pack into one tiny van when moving… Then there are flashbacks, when I suddenly realize that need that book - in your case may be the lipstick - I got rid of (though never opened it before), but this painful operation is absolutely necessary, if we don’t want to be crashed under heap of things. Removal is an opportunity not to lose.
Good luck!
Marianne, congrats on the job.
I went through exactly the same 5 years ago when I moved to another city because of a new job. I packed everything and when I moved in and started unpacking I decided to give away almost half of my belongings - to family, friends and charities. It felt good and my new home could “breathe”.
Since then I have bought majority of things only when I needed them (of course I sometimes can´t resist some girlie stuff). I even do not give gifts to family and friends unless they want or need something special. I prepare surprises to them - I take them for trips, buy them courses, massages… They love it. They prefer to do something they enjoy and have great memories of than having to dust something they do not even like every week.
@ Johan, luckily we have second hand shops in my country that sell things (mostly porcelain, glass, pottery, jewellery), furniture, books and clothes and you can find great things there. In fact it is quite popular to go and buy stuff from there. People like it because these old things have “soul”.
Thank you all for reading, for your comments and congratulations!
@Johan, @Giedre, @Carmen, @Radka, where I live, there isn’t a culture of buying used things; just like Carmen said, only really poor people buy from those places and there aren’t so many stores which sell used things. And it’s actually strange to our culture; it’s a thing that seems very interesting to me.
@Robert, that’s actually what I’m doing. I’m giving my friends around half of my books, those I’m not specially fond of, and the library from my university is getting a lot of law books I don’t use anymore. Actually, books are my biggest issue regarding lack of space, but I’m not ready to let them go and say I’m not buying anymore -actually, I’m gonna work in an editorial house, so I’m not cheating anyone; I’ll just try to buy only those I really feel like I need to have.
I’m just shocked by the amount of stuff, even new or almost new stuff, that I gave away this last week, and that I actually didn’t need and could be useful for other people, and also, by the amount of garbage I’m throwing away.
Hope it’s good karma to let free all that space, at least.
I have the same thoughts… and it definitely bugs me that nothing seems to be made to last anymore. Ipods seem to die after 2 years, cell phones maybe a year. The option of holding onto things is taken away from you. I hate throwing away things that still work because it feels like such a waste, but there is a lot of pressure to replace anything that is a bit old.
Well, I think you might be right, but I also see in the UK that there are systems to enforce cleanness - at least on the streets. If you have to may a monthly tax to have your litter taken away (I mean all your litter, not just some) you grew aware of all the littering. The recycling culture helps too - one can save money on sharing and passing things on - see Freecycle.org.