Minimalist Multifunctionism in the Quest of Dog

[Turtle]

___I have this current obsession to minimalize my posessions & other entanglements, in the vein of Diogenes the Dog. Unlike his days however, they lock you up now if you try to live naked in a pot. Just so, I try to strike a reasonable balance wherin what I do keep must have multifunctionality.

___The hardest things to rid myself of are gifts from others & I have been at this long enough that anyone that knows me well enough to give me a gift, knows better.

___I feel guilty to have anything, since it means someone else doesn't have it. I feel guilty for any art I produce, the electricity I waste doing computer experiments, &...

___Anyway, my obsession is to have nothing more than I need or can maintain, while remaining free.

[Queso]

Yeah I can't get rid of gifts people give me, it's so hard. especially from my parents. it's weird.

i don't care about the electricity i consume or waste though, maybe i should?

oy, i don't know.

[Fishteacher73]

I try to have as little stuff as possible as well. What I do purchase I try to buy used (Recycle the goods, and they are cheaper). I have a weak spot of CD's and books (Although many can be found used, I have a lot of them). Perhaps for multi-function they can serve as door-stops and paperweights.

 

Yet I have my kids.....They have piles of stuff. I am actually trying to go through their toys and liquidate as much as possible, but I do not think that I will really make too much of a dent. (They have 4 sets of grandparents that like to buy them TONS of toys).

[Turtle]

___May I first say that while I expressed my own feeling of guilt, I in no way intend to imply that people having things is guilt worthy. I also recognize that my feeling guilt is probably unwarrented.

___Part of the idea in this for me is efficiency; getting the most from the least. Indeed, this is where Tormod & his monster called Hypography enters in. Here in the lounge, orb is talking about dreams & I used to keep journals wherein I recorded numerous dreams; I burned the last of those journals 4 months ago.

___ What I haven't yet dematerialized is my math research. Well, here we go now; into a longish thing... (So glad you made the Lounge Tormod!) I have not yet thrown away my papers on my research on the off chance that what I think I see is worth seeing & that somehow it might serve to make things more efficient somehow in the world at large. To throw it away without knowing is irresponsible in my view & again the guilt thing confronts me.

___Oh yeah...Hypography. OK, so my thinking now is, that if I can distribute my 'discoveries' widely enough here so that I am confident a few people understand it & that it is archived, I can throw away my papers.

___Now another main problem in all this for me is that I consider myself an artist, or maybe a better term is creator(some may not say what I do is art). This creates a contradiction for minimalism inasmuch asI feel I must justify any art work by some argument of efficiency. Further, I feel guilty for imposing my creations on people so that they feel compelled to spend their energy on them.

___In my region of the world, some of the native tribes had a tradition called Potlatch, in which every year all the tribes gathered for a big celebration & gift giving. The greatest honor went to the one who gave the most; especially if they gave everything they had & it consisted of highly prized items.

___Of course the irony is now they posessed the most honor. It is all very paradoxical to me & perhaps simply illusary. :naughty:

[Buffy]

I personally think that happiness is not tied to have/not have/eschew. I keep too much stuff. It costs money to keep it. It costs time to reorganize/move it. I lost everything once in a house fire. I'm actually convinced things are not very important, just comforting. Based on that experience, the stuff I like to keep either has intrinsic creative value (lost hours of tapes of my music, stuff I'd written, art I'd created), or its got some tie to an event or person that I value (my daughter's baby clothes). Stuff can be fun though. I can never own enough music equipment....

 

Advice when none is asked: don't throw away what you've created, even if you think its useless. If you don't want to keep it, give it to someone who will. If all else fails, then there's no choice but the landfill or compost heap, but try other avenues first.

 

Turtle: we really like you keeping your ideas here on hypography, cuz we get to enjoy them! OTOH, I don't trust our ISP: Tormod and I use the same hosting company, and while the do do backups and take them off-site, they don't promise not to lose your data. So please do keep a local copy!

 

"No try, do"

Buffy

[Turtle]

___How synchronitic Buf; I think this started for me after a house fire. I didn't loose everything by burning, but everything suffered smoke damage. I had to move, pack, & store what didn't burn, while repairs were made to the flat.

___My main approach to the creative/art stuff, is to minimize any new creations & carefully characterize past ones for dematerialization.

___My general view/approach is to characterize everything in terms of calories-per-unit-time(CPUT). Deep thought burns just as many CPUT as vigorous physical exercise; moreover, any human (animal) activity is representable by this scale, & varies only by degree & circumstance.

___To 'own' something is to spend CPTU; whether thinking about it, dusting it, protecting it, moving it, boasting about it, storing it, displaying it etc. The problem then becomes one of efficiently spending one's CPTU. One such way, is to eliminate whole categories of expenditure.

___What do you all think?:naughty:

[Buffy]

___My main approach to the creative/art stuff, is to minimize any new creations & carefully characterize past ones for dematerialization.

An interesting variation of "Art is never finished, only abandoned." Or perhaps admonitions from football coaches about not having sex before the big game... But if your main reason for minimzing is the CPUT, well let's take that one separately:

___My general view/approach is to characterize everything in terms of calories-per-unit-time(CPUT). Deep thought burns just as many CPUT as vigorous physical exercise....To 'own' something is to spend CPTU; whether thinking about it, dusting it,.... The problem then becomes one of efficiently spending one's CPTU. One such way, is to eliminate whole categories of expenditure.

Now this is an example of something one of my favorite B-school professors pounded into our heads: "The problem with Cost-Benefit analysis is that its lots easier to identify and quantify Costs rather than Benefits, so most such analysis is really 'Cost Analysis' and often leads to incorrect conclusions." I don't think eliminating expenditure--especially whole categories--does much other than cut you off from things that you never would have imagined would be so good.

 

Like me, my daughter is a total adrenaline junkie. We spend lots of time on rollercoasters. The good ones , over and over and over again (Goliath at Magic Mountain is one of our favorites: 200 foot vertical drop all at once :naughty: ) Now this would seem to be a total waste of energy at an *extremely* high CPUT. But we'd never stop. Its *fun*! Fun is very high on my list.

 

Owning stuff is expensive, so don't do it unless you're going to get something from it, but I think "enjoying" something can be delayed, surprising, and serendipitous. Most people unfortunately own stuff so that they own more than the Smith's next door, which is singularly wasteful. Where I live, there seems to be a continuing escalation of who has the biggest Suburban Assault Vehicle. You know what? They *all* look longingly at my Camaro, which they can't own because it wouldn't "look" right. Feh!

 

Beware of false economy, it can keep you from doing things you'll be glad later you went ahead and did...

 

Livin' large,

Buffy

[Turtle]

___I think you have a good point Buff as far the difficulty in quantifying the 'fun', or 'comfort', as someone else suggested here. My idea of CPUT just occured to me as a convenient way to quantify things, so it is not the main reason but rather a handy measure.

___It is a generalization only of my specific attempts at 'dematerializing'. I further agree about serendipitous fun, & so I don't hold out that I might throw away something fun or comforting because I expect the serendipity to come from without.:naughty:

[Buffy]

Ooooh! Serendipity comes from *within*! Its merely interesting if someone else comes up with it!

 

"We're not just gonna be amazing. We're gonna be *amazingly* amazing!"

Buffy

[Turtle]

___The philosophical aspects aside for the moment, I do apply the method. I have over the last year replaced most all the lightbulbs in our house with the flourescent type, I have turned down the water heater, I rush hither & thither with insect authority turning off lights & TVs behind others in the house, I carefully seperate recyclables, & I'd rather make my way around in a dark house than turn on a light. I've become quite good at it actually. :hyper:

[Turtle]

___One of the categories of posessions is books, & I have now just 20. I used to have hundreds & sometimes I would drive down late at night to the library after closing & put my books in the return bin. Some I just put into the paper recycle bin, some I give to intertested parties.

___Most of what remains are math references & the rest animal/mineral/plant ID books. Oh yeah, & an atlas & a dictionary.

___Besides CPUT I think about how much stuff weighs & how much volume it takes; then I rate it by VPPUS (Value Per Pound/unit^2) [Of course then I have to relate the VPPUS to the CPUT]:hyper: Ahhh efficiency!

[zadojla]

Besides CPUT I think about how much stuff weighs & how much volume it takes; then I rate it by VPPUS (Value Per Pound/unit^2)

Shouldn't you be using (Value Per Pound/unit^3), since you're comparing volume and weight?

[Buffy]

Now here's a metaphysical experiment: how bout taking some good literature or poetry, running up to the top of Mt. St. Helens and throwing it in the caldera? It might get the mountain to better understand that there are good humans, and she should just stay quiet until we find some other way to drive ourselves to extinction. Hmmm. Would be quite an expenditure of CPUT to get up there, but it would probably help strengthen your heart muscle to live longer too, so you'd have more supply of CPUT. Also, the VPP applied to yourself is actually Body Mass Index, so you'd definitely burn off some fat and get a better BMI.

 

I personally can't get rid of a book. The only way I will ever part with a book is by giving it to someone else who will appreciate it, and I feel a lot better if I *know* they'll appreciate it. I've got some books that I buy in bulk because I think everyone should read them. Currently that's Bill Bryson's "*A Short History..." but ever since high school I've bought and given away about a hundred copies of "Our Bodies Ourselves." I would argue that the value of the knowledge in books far outweighs their VPP, and you should consider it carefully in your evaluation of "necessary" books....

COGLEY: What's the matter? Don't you like books?

KIRK: Oh, I like them fine, but a computer takes less space.

COGLEY: [scoffs] A computer, huh? I got one of these in my office. Contains all the precedents, a synthesis of all the great legal decisions written throughout time. I never use it.

KIRK: Why not?

COGLEY: I've got my own system. Books, young man, books. Thousands of them. If time wasn't so important, I'd show you something: my library. Thousands of books.

KIRK: What would be the point?

COGLEY: This is where the law is, not in that homogenized, pasteurized, synthesized-- Do you want to know the law, the ancient concepts in their own language, Learn the intent of the men who wrote them, from Moses to the tribunal of Alpha 3? Books!

KIRK: You have to be either an obsessive crackpot who's escaped from his keeper or Samuel T. Cogley, attorney-at-law.

COGLEY: Right on both counts. Need a lawyer?

KIRK: I'm afraid so.

— Star Trek, "Court Martial"

 

Books, Books They're Good for You!

Buffy

[Turtle]

Buffy said, "Now here's a metaphysical experiment: how bout taking some good literature or poetry, running up to the top of Mt. St. Helens and throwing it in the caldera?"

___No one is allowed within 5 miles, but it is a nice gesture to the world.

___Now as I seek multifunctionality by minimalising, I don't just get rid of books because of the measures already described. If I am reading a book, I am not researching or writing a book, ie. my potential to discover new things is apprehended in time.

___One reaches a point where one needs to stop referencing others & strike out on ones own. Unfettered & with the simple stick of curiosity to check for yourself what 'they' say & show 'them' what they passed underfoot.:hyper:

[Buffy]

On the great mountain goddess: Maybe 5 miles is close enuf? Or you can make friends with one of the USGS folks who work up there occasionally? I must admit to being more than a bit of a Pagan myself...

 

The biggest mistake that people make in "trying" to be creative is the belief that they need to study more. Creating is creating, studying is not creating.

 

Create! Create! or Wet Skin Well! OK!

Buffy

[Turtle]

___Zad said, "Shouldn't you be using (Value Per Pound/unit^3), since you're comparing volume and weight?"

___I believe you have that correct; my bad. GETE (Grinning Ear To Ear)

___Buffy said , " I must admit to being more than a bit of a Pagan myself..."

___GETE; Ditto. If nothing else, the ceremonialism is a gateway to focused thought.

 

___More categories of minimalization to come.:hyper:

[Turtle]

___I once had a 20 year obsession with photography, & as you might imagine, I aquired considerable equipment. Lenses, filters, mor drives, tripods, enlarger, tanks, clips, & no end of clap-trap.

___This of course does not count the endless hundreds of slides, negatives, & prints.

___Well guess what? I gave away the equipment & threw out the rest of the lot. I have only 1 print I saved & I put it in the Gallery:

http://hypography.com/gallery/showimage.php?i=227&c=3&userid=796

___This is taken from a remote control camera suspended 400 + feet in the air from a large box kite. :Alien: