I own a a few books, really not that much, nowhere near filling up a bookshelf. Still, in terms of physical volume of things I own, it is significant. More books would be nice; I want more books.
It's difficult to express my feelings on this. Simple living, or thinking about it, gives a warm feeling. Thinking of yourself as a person amenable to such things gives the same. Looking at the small stacks of books laying around (and the pile of currently unused but very importanttm laptops) pretty much shattered those delusions. I couldn't deny that I was greatly attached to my books, and to the idea of having many more. Shame!
Digital hoarding, on the other hand, feels guilt-free, as long as I don't need to buy more drives. Why not, then, just download all the books as pdfs?
It's just not the same. I would say it is nice to be able to insert tons of little bookmarks and notes, and flip through and read them and review them. I do have books that are too expensive for me to afford downloaded (thank you Anna!), and the reality is that I just don't look at them often. Only very rarely, and only ever a quick ctrl+f search to find something on my mind. The software is just too cumbersome. But surely there is better software can do all that stuff in a probably even more ergonomic manner than physical books. Perhaps it can still be justified with that often cited study that having a physical component to your learning improves memory retention (or whatever). I have yet to see the study in question, mostly because I don't care to search. It sounds completely reasonable, and intuitively expected. In the end though, it doesn't matter and it is probably better to not have a reason to take it seriously.
In the end, the feel is just not replicable digitally. So is the preference just arbitrary? The reasoning ineffable? No, you can certainly describe the feel: of the paper, of the blackness of the ink, of the lighting, of the sound of pages turning, of cutting strips out of sticky notes and placing them on so they stick out of the top. That's a perfectly good justification on its own, isn't it? It seems in our modern culture, we devalue our own experiences in favour of numbers and "science" and logic. But we just fool ourselves. Or at least I was. Maybe those "rationalist community" folks (ie. Scott Alexander / Yudkowsky / tech bro types) have it all figured out![0]
But maybe this line of thinking is getting too far ahead of itself. In the first place, does it make sense to have a strong distinction between digital and physical possessions? Or rather, are digital possessions and physical ones any different in terms of "living a simple life"? Of course, digital stuff exists physically[1], but you know what I mean. Something something duality, abstractness, etc etc. This isn't a philosophy blog, thank the lord. But we'll take a small cautious step in that dangerous direction. Maybe it is about our attachments to the object? In that case, since many of the digital things are easy to replace, maybe they do weigh less? For example, I would be a little miffed if my mp3 collection got wiped. But I could rebuild it, it would just cost me a few hours, and even if there are some songs I forget and never add back, that wouldn't bother me all that much.
On the other hand, having tons of stuff, just disposable, doesn't really seem like simplicity. It seems worse than having stuff you hold on to a little too tightly. It just seems wasteful and unthoughtful. If you don't own anything, but you buy or get tons of shit and just throw it away, that's not any different. So then you might consider the net "displacement" of things (as opposed to the "distance"); that is, how many things pass through your possession, however brief.
A more nuanced, though not especially novel, take might be that it is a combination of that "displacement", as well as the lifespan, attachment and mental attitude toward that thing. But to even try to calculate it feels too clinical.
Or maybe this entire line of thought is overcomplicating things, maybe living simply is just the bare minimum you need to survive. You know, sleep in a cave or something. That certainly is simple, but it sounds unpleasant. Though the blurry image of "simple living" in my head is probably similarly unappealing to others[2]. Surely one could become accustomed to an extreme ascetic lifestyle and begin to enjoy it. I am reminded of the romanticised rail vagrants hopping trains with their cartoon-style sack on a stick and some breed of stringed instrument. Difficult of a life as it was, the romanticism wasn't totally unjustified. After all, much of it was created by the vagrants themselves.
All that is to say, I really don't have a real definition for what a simple but good lifestyle would be. What then?
Well, having such a poor understanding of my current and especially future selves, I struggle to think of anything better than just experimenting. Cutting things out, seeing how life is. If it isn't better, then putting it back in. No different than diagnosing any other problem. Just like hunting down bugs in the code or rabbits in the heat.
Happy hunting.
===
[0]: Wait a second, scientific racism? Psuedo-intellectuals are really all the same.
[1]: Electrons and such, amirite?
[2]: Much like the monastic "middle way" of the Buddha was in relation to extreme ascetics, and so is super mega different from modern living today.
I own a a few books, really not that much, nowhere near filling up a bookshelf. Still, in terms of physical volume of things I own, it is significant. More books would be nice; I want more books.
It's difficult to express my feelings on this. Simple living, or thinking about it, gives a warm feeling. Thinking of yourself as a person amenable to such things gives the same. Looking at the small stacks of books laying around (and the pile of currently unused but very important^tm^ laptops) pretty much shattered those delusions. I couldn't deny that I was greatly attached to my books, and to the idea of having many more. Shame!
Digital hoarding, on the other hand, feels guilt-free, as long as I don't need to buy more drives. Why not, then, just download all the books as pdfs?
It's just not the same. I would say it is nice to be able to insert tons of little bookmarks and notes, and flip through and read them and review them. I do have books that are too expensive for me to afford downloaded (thank you Anna!), and the reality is that I just don't look at them often. Only very rarely, and only ever a quick ctrl+f search to find something on my mind. The software is just too cumbersome. But surely there is better software can do all that stuff in a probably even more ergonomic manner than physical books. Perhaps it can still be justified with that often cited study that having a physical component to your learning improves memory retention (or whatever). I have yet to see the study in question, mostly because I don't care to search. It sounds completely reasonable, and intuitively expected. In the end though, it doesn't matter and it is probably better to not have a reason to take it seriously.
In the end, the feel is just not replicable digitally. So is the preference just arbitrary? The reasoning ineffable? No, you can certainly describe the feel: of the paper, of the blackness of the ink, of the lighting, of the sound of pages turning, of cutting strips out of sticky notes and placing them on so they stick out of the top. That's a perfectly good justification on its own, isn't it? It seems in our modern culture, we devalue our own experiences in favour of numbers and "science" and logic. [But we just fool ourselves.](/posts/logical-people) Or at least I was. Maybe those "rationalist community" folks (ie. Scott Alexander / Yudkowsky / tech bro types) have it all figured out!^\[0\]^
But maybe this line of thinking is getting too far ahead of itself. In the first place, does it make sense to have a strong distinction between digital and physical possessions? Or rather, are digital possessions and physical ones any different in terms of "living a simple life"? Of course, digital stuff exists physically^\[1\]^, but you know what I mean. Something something duality, abstractness, etc etc. This isn't a philosophy blog, thank the lord. But we'll take a small cautious step in that dangerous direction. Maybe it is about our attachments to the object? In that case, since many of the digital things are easy to replace, maybe they do weigh less? For example, I would be a little miffed if my mp3 collection got wiped. But I could rebuild it, it would just cost me a few hours, and even if there are some songs I forget and never add back, that wouldn't bother me all that much.
On the other hand, having tons of stuff, just disposable, doesn't really seem like simplicity. It seems worse than having stuff you hold on to a little too tightly. It just seems wasteful and unthoughtful. If you don't own anything, but you buy or get tons of shit and just throw it away, that's not any different. So then you might consider the net "displacement" of things (as opposed to the "distance"); that is, how many things pass through your possession, however brief.
A more nuanced, though not especially novel, take might be that it is a combination of that "displacement", as well as the lifespan, attachment and mental attitude toward that thing. But to even try to calculate it feels too clinical.
Or maybe this entire line of thought is overcomplicating things, maybe living simply is just the bare minimum you need to survive. You know, sleep in a cave or something. That certainly is simple, but it sounds unpleasant. Though the blurry image of "simple living" in my head is probably similarly unappealing to others^\[2\]^. Surely one could become accustomed to an extreme ascetic lifestyle and begin to enjoy it. I am reminded of the romanticised rail vagrants hopping trains with their cartoon-style sack on a stick and some breed of stringed instrument. Difficult of a life as it was, the romanticism wasn't totally unjustified. After all, much of it was created by the vagrants themselves.
All that is to say, I really don't have a real definition for what a simple but good lifestyle would be. What then?
Well, having such a poor understanding of my current and especially future selves, I struggle to think of anything better than just experimenting. Cutting things out, seeing how life is. If it isn't better, then putting it back in. No different than diagnosing any other problem. Just like hunting down bugs in the code or rabbits in the heat.
Happy hunting.
===
\[0\]: Wait a second, [scientific racism](https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/how-to-stop-worrying-and-learn-to)? Psuedo-intellectuals are really all the same.
\[1\]: Electrons and such, amirite?
\[2\]: Much like the monastic "middle way" of the Buddha was in relation to extreme ascetics, and so is super mega different from modern living today.