I disagree with this. Yes his experience is based on being a wealthy individual who can buy whatever he wants, as opposed to being someone who just can’t afford a TV. The setup he has, while pushing it to the extreme isn’t that excessive. Your average person will have a computer, some kind of sound system and some way of watching movies or TV socially. His wall to ceiling storage isn’t condescending, it’s practical.
As far as the fridge goes I currently have one shelf in a fridge and one shelf in a freezer and that stores enough groceries for three or four days. A single person living in that apartment could cook easily with the amount of storage he has.
And he’s right that stuff doesn’t make you happy. My mother is a packrat and I grew up in a household brimming with stuff. We are the people who fill up our house and then go get a storage locker once that’s not enough. I watched this and wondered what the point was. None of those boxes of stuff made my mother particularly happy and they didn’t make my home any nicer, they just took up space. It has nothing to with the amount of wealth we had. It was simply that those possessions didn’t bring us anything of much value. Most of them we didn’t really need.
I am amazed by the amount of stuff your average university student posseses. I helped a friend move last spring and was amazed (and mildly judgmental) that someone my age would have as much stuff as she did. It seemed impossible that she had so many DVDs, video games, and books—especially given that she can get watch just about anything online and take out all the books in the world from the library. Where was she going to put them and why had I agree to help her move them from point A to point B? Most of it ended up in a storage area, and has not seen the light of day since. She may as well not own them at this rate.
All this made me think about the stuff that I own. Books are heavy and cumbersumb to move. I can get as many as I will ever need out of the library. At the rate I read I could fill up a lot of basements very quickly, and I have no interest in doing that. I don’t need to possess a book to enjoy it and there is nothing nicer than knowing that when I’m done with it I will never have to see it again. Another source of books I love is book exchanges. These books are not yours forever but for long enough. Once you are done you pass it along. This isn’t pauperism, it’s practical.
Before finishing university and moving to random foreign countries I made an effort to dispatch some of my belonging. Clothes that I hated were given away to interested parties, I sold some of my books and graphic novels leaving those that weren’t taken that I never wanted to read again at my friendly neighbourhood book exchange (partially motivated by guilt at absing the system for so long), and sold some of my CDs. I have no need to physically possess these. I can access music at the drop of a hat all I need is a wifi hookup. I don’t need these things and I don’t want them. I don’t want to have to cart them halfway across the country, or halfway across the world in a few years time. I don’t want to have to store them when they are of little value or use to me.
It’s not that I don’t own anything it’s that I don’t need that much, and probably none of us do. The father of one of my really good friends is a teacher who spends his summers living out of an RV. His life advice has always been spend money on experiences, not things.
When it comes to things I believe less is more—even if it means taming the voice in the back of my head that wants to buy that shirt in every colour just in case I never find another shirt that fits me as well. I don’t need a collection of DVDs. I don’t want a house that is bursting at the seams. I don’t need to own books to read a lot. My collection of cardigans will not make me happy.
Or as Rowhouse Livin’ concludes (I heartily agree with them on this) “have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful.”