TheRantingGeek.com Explaining to the world why it ought to know better since 2001

Project Diogenes, part 1

If you're like most people, you don't know who Diogenes was. If you're like me, you've had him mixed up with Demosthenes for the last five years. Silly Greeks having hard-to-remember Greek names... Anyway, there are a number of cool things about Diogenes. He was a cynic several thousand years before it was trendy, and spent his life in search of an honest man. But what has me thinking about him recently is that he was also an example of a fairly rare breed: the urban acetic. Despite living in Athens and Corinth, quite comfortable and materialistic cities of the time, he deliberately avoided material possessions. One story about him says that he once saw a peasant drinking water out of his cupped hand. Diogenes immediately threw away his wooden bowl, the only possession he had, and exclaimed "To think, all my life I have let myself be burdened by a bowl."

I'd be the first to admit that I have a lot of stuff. But the irony of that is that I also have a very simple lifestyle. Most of the things that I own have been sitting in boxes for years completely ignored. Next summer, I'm hoping to build myself a tiny house on wheels, and if I want that to be realistic I need to start divesting myself of all this random stuff. So here's the goal I'm setting for myself: I am going to go through everything that I own, and put anything I don't actively wish to keep up on eBay for $.99. Anything that doesn't sell on eBay gets freecycled.  This is going to be my main project for the winter, until I get to the point that I can fit all of my belongings onto a single shelving unit. I'm making exceptions for my computers and my woodworking equipment, because the computers are in daily use and I need the woodworking equipment to build and furnish the house. But if I take this project seriously, I hope to come out of it with a nice chunk of change, an easier time moving next time that happens, and a freer mind. Wish me luck.