While I was thinking about that "Do 101 things in 1001 days" project, I also came across a guy who was running a "Whittle your life down to just 6 possessions" project. I found this massively appealing and I think I'm nearly there by accident rather than design. There are a few things that I thought were sensible to take out of the equation such as clothes, table, chairs, fridge etc... so I guess it's been slightly re-angled to mean 6 personal possessions. I'm having trouble actually getting it up to six to be honest. Here's my list so far - not in any particular order:
1. iBook
2. iPod
3. Phone
4. Guitar
5. Car
6. ?
If I get stuck, I could probably trade in both my phone and my iPod and get myself the iPhone Beast version and make some space for another item but that number six is eluding me anyway. I have rather a lot of books... in the hundreds easily but I could never pick just one to be left with, so in theory, they either all go or all stay. I have started to pare down the shelves by giving away lots to whoever I think will get a kick out of them, but there are some that my life wouldn't be the same without. A near complete set of Clive Barker first editions for instance. It wouldn't kill me to not have them around, but I kind of like having them there because some of them took me so long to get - which is weird because now I've stripped every CD down to a digital format and only own three, I'm not particularly bothered about keeping hold of those anymore either.
Maybe I should invest in the Sony Reader, grab every book I own as a digital edition and be done with thinking about it.
Once you get past thinking you need stuff around, it gets quite easy. It's very liberating and amazingly, if I lost everything on that six item list, my life would be far from over. Everything is replaceable. Some of it would be a bit awkward to replace but not impossible. You can buy any of those things anywhere and in my case in a much newer model - and be up and running again in half a day if you had the mind for it. With the exception of the music, everything important is backed up somewhere online and if the music was really that important, I could probably archive it on a hard disc somewhere and leave it at my mums house 'just in case'.
In the extreme, if it weren't for "needing" InDesign, Acrobat and PhotoShop, I could probably live without an iBook too, so long as I could get online... which might bring me back to the iPhone. Although that remains untested, the theory is sound enough to roll with. How long will it be before Steve Jobs gets around to making an iPhone that turns into a guitar?
After fighting for so long to surround myself with stuff, this is a strange place to get to - in which people, events and a real-life have taken priority. I mean, that's the way it should be, but I see people every day who drive immaculate cars and treat their kids like shit. Everybody in my family who has died has left behind nothing of sentimental value for me (in fairness, nobody had/has anything I wanted anyway) and it looks as though I shall be continuing the fashion! I guess if I was to die tomorrow, I would rather there was big stack of cash for them to make use of and a bucketful of great memories.
I've learnt a lot from this and thoroughly encourage everybody passing by to take some time out - not to particularly do it but at least to get their head around the concept.
Would the world fall apart if we all lived like this?
