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The end of an era . . .
shmokes:
When I really started giving this thought was around the time I was signing up to take the bar. My intention all along was to take the New York Bar and move away from Miami after law school (hopefully to Paris, but NY or DC alternatively). But as law school was winding down, and I was going to register for the bar, there was a serious temptation to just take the Florida bar. And I realized that I felt this way largely because the thought of packing up all this stuff I had and moving it was so unpleasant.
I have all this stuff. And I value it, my stuff. I value it a lot, but why do I value it? The only thing that made 99% of my stuff special is that it was mine. And here I was, reconsidering whether I should go out and continue pursuing my dreams and gaining rich new experiences from around the country, hopefully around the world, because carrying all this stuff with me would be such a nuisance.
We decided to sell almost everything we owned. My book collection was huge. I had an enormous library of books, among which were about 30-40 Easton Press editions which are extremely nice books with the following characteristics (copied from Wikipedia):
bound in fine genuine leather
22kt gold-stamped spine accents
distinctive raised spine hubs
intricate gilt stamped cover designs
specially milled acid-neutral paper
Smyth-sewn pages
gilded page edges
endsheets of moiré silk
permanent satin ribbon page-marker
They're beautiful. And I loved my books, beautiful and ugly, for their contents. But . . . once I'd read them, I just owned them. That's the only thing I did with them. I owned them. And maybe there is some intrinsic value to ownership, in and of itself. But maybe all the things you have and collect pile up around you and make you unable to even see some of the potentially more valuable things out there.
In hindsight, the legal market is so bad that I probably would have been better off taking the Florida bar, getting a good job in Miami, which would have been much easier, and trying to break into the type of law I really want to practice (international arbitration) a few years down the road when the economy improves. But that's another conversation for another time, lol.
This whole thing makes me think of the brilliant speech from Up IN The Air. Brilliantly written and delivered, I mean. The message of the speech is too extreme probably bad advice in the long term, at least for most people. But there is at least a grain of truth to it.
Link to video - Embed doesn't work
nitz:
--- Quote from: shmokes on February 27, 2012, 02:53:58 pm ---Boxed up since October 2010, though I only had the opportunity to unbox it in October 2011 when I moved into a new permanent location so had all my belongings shipped to me from Miami where they'd been sitting in storage.
But for 3 or 4 years before boxing them up when I was moving away from Miami, although they were on display I had utterly no interest in them. So for years I've had no interest, and for a year they were boxed up in another state, but when I finally had all my belongings shipped to myself, after not having them for an entire year, I unpacked all my things, but still just had no interest whatsoever in unpacking and displaying my Pez. I'm pretty sure I'm just done.
--- End quote ---
You know, you really are sounding like someone who's done with it and knows it. I'll suggest at least keeping the Tweety Bird one and maybe some of the other early ones you got - those are part of your past and would have some memories associated with them I would think. You may be sorry if you get rid of them. They could go in a little box in a closet and you could just forget about them unless you wanted to look at them. The stuff that you bought just to collect would be less special...sell 'em.
--- Quote from: shmokes on February 27, 2012, 02:53:58 pm ---Also, I've actually been moving toward the belief that collecting in general is maybe not that great a thing maybe sometimes a bad thing. Or sometimes the bad outweighs the good but it's invisible and you don't even know it's there. I mean to have things not because you want them or like them or they have any other intrinsic value to you, but only because they are just one more thing that shares some characteristic with another thing you have.
--- End quote ---
--- Quote from: shmokes on February 27, 2012, 03:16:02 pm ---I have all this stuff. And I value it, my stuff. I value it a lot, but why do I value it? The only thing that made 99% of my stuff special is that it was mine.
--- End quote ---
Well said man, well said. I'm 30 as well, and over the last couple of years, I've really been cluing in to the fact that stuff can just kind of weigh you down and burden you. I never got hardcore into collecting anything (I'm kinda OCD, so if I got into something like that, it would probably take over my life), but I have way more stuff than I feel I really need - yet I struggle to part with most of it and it causes me a bit of anxiety. I don't even really have what most people would consider a lot of stuff. I'm a blue collar guy, I do ok money and stuff wise, but certainly nothing that most people would get excited about.
For right now, I'm just not acquiring more stuff for the most part...when I'm thinking of buying something, I always ask myself, "Do I really want this? Am I ok with adding this to the pile and having it taking up space long-term?" Occasionally the answer is yes, but usually it is no. And I am working on slowly getting rid of a lot of my stuff. There is some stuff I know I'll never wanna get rid of, but I'm really moving towards just letting go of most of it. I think it'll make me calmer and happier. Less is more.
Again, best of luck with this. :)
leapinlew:
--- Quote from: nitz on February 28, 2012, 12:40:13 am ---You know, you really are sounding like someone who's done with it and knows it. I'll suggest at least keeping the Tweety Bird one and maybe some of the other early ones you got - those are part of your past and would have some memories associated with them I would think.
--- End quote ---
Good idea. Keep a couple and put'em on a bookshelf. They don't take up much space.
shmokes:
I put a gallery together with individual pics of each set. The simplest way to see the pictures is click on one of the thumbnails and then just use your keyboard's arrow keys to scroll through images.
pez.jakemoses.com
By the way, I added a link to the video of of the Up In The Air speech a couple posts up. The embed doesn't seem to work, at least not on my computer.
leapinlew:
Nice pic with your daughter. What does she think of this?
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