criterionforum.org

So much of this "self-help" stuff, even when it's ostensibly about consuming less, is still about selling people things. And when it became clear that people had bought too much and clutter was a problem, that opened up a new avenue for selling easy answers: "clearing clutter" and "living simply." Those can both be good things, of course, but I've looked at a number of books on the topic, and they're as sanctimonious and badly written as the above link. The worst one I've seen is Give It Up! by Mary Carlomagno, in which the author's basis for writing the book was the experience of having given up a consumerist habit of the most wealthy in our society, like regular travel in taxis and social meetings for pricy cocktails, for a single month, to learn life lessons from the experience, and then return to those habits.
The "clear your clutter" books I hate most are those that advise boxing or bagging up "clutter" without paying much attention to what's in it. Then, if you haven't gone looking for anything you need in those boxes or bags within a few months, then you must not need it! So the solution is to simply get rid of the bags or boxes, unopened, because anything one doesn't use or miss within a few months is totally unnecessary and should be thrown out!
Some of the rare people I've known who live this way end up buying more stuff than anyone else, to replace what they've previously bought and got rid of impulsively.

I'm assuming that, when their 2015 film on minimalism they're touting finishes its theatrical run, they'll have the decency to not put it out on DVD.

I think these guys might be psychopaths or the leaders of a cult or both

A few words about sentimental items

We all have sentimental items like pictures of loved ones, that plate your mom gave you for a special occasion, those little knickknacks that grandma gave us as kids, etc.

This might come as a shock to you, but throw them away.

Think about it. They don’t really have any value or meaning other than the meaning you give those items.

Hold on to your pictures for now, we’ll ask you to scan them and then throw them away in a few days.

But everything else can go. The past does not equal the future. The sentimental items are a reminder of the past and you don’t want to live there.

You want to live in the now.

You want to be on the mountain.

This might sound shocking to you, and you might be terribly afraid to throw out that box of trinkets that you never use, because they have sentimental value. But you are starting a new life, and you don’t need constant reminders of the past to have your new life. It’s counter-intuitive.

Click here to read an essay I wrote about getting rid of my mom’s sentimental items after her death.

domino harvey wrote:I think these guys might be psychopaths or the leaders of a cult or both

A few words about sentimental items

We all have sentimental items like pictures of loved ones, that plate your mom gave you for a special occasion, those little knickknacks that grandma gave us as kids, etc.

This might come as a shock to you, but throw them away.

Think about it. They don’t really have any value or meaning other than the meaning you give those items.

Hold on to your pictures for now, we’ll ask you to scan them and then throw them away in a few days.

But everything else can go. The past does not equal the future. The sentimental items are a reminder of the past and you don’t want to live there.

You want to live in the now.

You want to be on the mountain.

This might sound shocking to you, and you might be terribly afraid to throw out that box of trinkets that you never use, because they have sentimental value. But you are starting a new life, and you don’t need constant reminders of the past to have your new life. It’s counter-intuitive.

Click here to read an essay I wrote about getting rid of my mom’s sentimental items after her death.

If I click that link to that essay and it doesn't involve throwing mum's sentimental items one by one into a giant woodchipper to make some sort of grand statement, I'll be very disappointed!

To me it's an expression of the 'knowing the value of everything and the worth of nothing' ephemeral culture.

There's an amusing auctioneer programme run by the BBC called Flog It! (basically an Antiques Roadshow for people who don't have Sotherby's-level heirlooms that they want to check the value of 'just for fun', instead just handed-down objects of variable sentimental value that families can't wait to get rid of) that takes the same approach. It often leaves me aghast when we get the objects of sentimental value going under the hammer for £100 or so and have the chirpy presenter say "that will certainly go towards paying off your student loans/taking that holiday/double glazing your front room! And perhaps the person who bought your grandfather's war medals will like them better!"

How soon we all forget the twist ending to the Richie Rich movie, where villain John Laroquette makes the Richs let him into their vault under threat of violence, only to discover it's filled with emotionally valuable but financially worthless trinkets. "We keep the money in banks," is the elder Rich's sage response to Laroquette's furor.

ANYWAYS I read the linked (but not in my quoted post) essay and basically this guy's mom dies and he rents a U-Haul and buys a storage unit but then when he's packing things up he finds boxes of his schoolwork under his mom's bed and decides that she was trying to exert a hold on his childhood by keeping said mementos and he cancels the U-Haul and decides to throw all of her shit away instead. It was the opposite of inspiring.

Also, Day 18 in the Minimalists' guide to downsizing is selling your house. Day 19 is quitting your job. Day 20 is starting an exercise regimen. That should tell you more than enough about the feasibility and priorities of this program.

You want to be in good shape when you start living on the street and have to steal to survive and fight off other homeless folk and such.

I do kind of agree that collecting is just hoarding, and I get bored watching most things more than once.

It worries me that those things ally me with loons.

Also, I hate to break it to those guys that selling your DVDs for money is a dubious proposition these days, apart from any that happen to be massively out of print.

I regularly sell DVDs when I'm no longer interested in them, or when I'm upgrading them- it's not that difficult. And just because you get bored with watching things more than once doesn't mean I do- having things that are clean and useful and organized isn't hoarding, and it's as dull and language eroding an argument as 'all religions are cults."

Well, hey, as long as your DVDs are clean, that changes the whole scenario. I assumed we were talking about dirty ones.

So I've finally purchased a smartphone and would like to use the scanner on the bag to begin cataloging my DVD/BD collection. I see that there are some suggestions earlier in this thread for software, but those are several years old. Are there any apps that users would recommend now?

Before smart phones I used DVD profiler on my long sense defunct desktop. Then I got a Droid for four or five years and they never made a Droid app. So I used movie collection app but kinda hate it since it has very little filtering ability or detailed data per title.

I just got a galaxy s5 and thought maybe I'd switch to DVD profiler since they finally released an android app, but the first comments on the app say that it doesn't work with my os of android.

Thanks. I bought an S4. Doesn't Android account for something like 50% of smartphone sales over the last few years? It seems odd for them to stick with Iphones and Windows.

bamwc2 wrote:Thanks. I bought an S4. Doesn't Android account for something like 50% of smartphone sales over the last few years? It seems odd for them to stick with Iphones and Windows.

It may have something to do with iPads and Windows computers being much more prevalent than Android tablets- sure Android has a significant market share of smartphones, but their share of the "devices that play apps" market is probably much smaller.

I use My Movies Pro. It's easy to filter (with a lot of options), scans in discs with the barcode (regardless of region), and is easy to build unregistered discs into the system. Tons of info about each title is included. You can even log your movies as checked out and link them to people in your contacts.

Thanks for the tip on My Movies Pro. This seems a great system, already at work scanning my collection!

I use My Movies Pro as well. It has a lot of great features and is great for entering a bulk number of titles.

Oh, hey, guys, this is what my DVD library looks like:



Post edited to re-link image.

I've got to ask where the GAXWRX and Buster Keaton DVDs are!

Haha, no worries, as the blus are resting safely on my shelf, in pristine slipboxes. Those are both damaged boxes for which I had received replacements. It seems such a shame to just toss them out, so I always try to come up with some use for them (in these instances, one is for holding retail receipts and the other for mail.)

I would be curious to hear if others here make use of extra packaging materials. I've got several others, including a damaged MoC Passion of Joan of Arc steelbook I've been hanging onto, since I know there's got to be SOME WAY I can repurpose it.

Overheard my sister describing the films on my Amazon wishlist thusly the other day. I found it especially hurtful considering I actually deleted the list a couple years ago!

It's full of just the worst movies ever. Nothing anyone has ever heard of.

She's just trying to minimalize taste and decorum out of the clutter of her mind

Not sure if you can read the spines, but here's a picture of my DVD/VHS library:

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I've used sideways cardboard boxes (the kind staff use to carry DVDs around at JB Hi-Fi) as shelving, which has worked pretty well for me over the years – they've only toppled over the one time (when I was standing underneath, no less)!