How much of your past life material goods do you keep?

#1

Kind of continuing the idea of the SRK 10th anniversary, I’m looking at what I own, what I do in my life and what I’ve done. This is kind of a long overdue spring cleaning about an entire season too late but I look around and I just realize how much of a packrat I am. It is partially because I’m lazy but also because my home is the last place I chill out sometimes, I just see it as a pit stop between work and eating.

I look around and I see a bunch of old college texts that I haven’t touched in years, filing cabinet is full of bank statements that are older than this website, DS games that I haven’t played, an extra mattress etc. etc.

However that really isn’t a point anymore since we live in a society where it’s hyper-realism and somehow every single minute of your day has to be fulfilled with a promise of an internet meme or a small taste pseudo celeb frame via status updates (OMFG I totally found a dust bunny while cleaning! DIE DIE DIE!) it also seems have replaced our need to own things physically when we could just refer to them on the internet. Sure you don’t need to purchase that threadless Tee, but the very same impact of “Whoa that is awesome, you are the first of my facebook friends to have found that” is created by linking it.

This thread could relate to DLC, online games, pirating music to a degree, blogging and other things but as we kind of put more of us on the internet; essentially replacing the responsibility of showing off our personality IRL with a internet database for people to come and judge us (if they choose to do so), do material goods really even matter at this point?

Of course we’ll still buy stuff. But I’ve never been one to ever own a collection of anything. Games to a certain degree but I think because my parents own a convenience store and therefore renting out games had sort of made me think that material items are not necessarily “mine and mine alone” but an immaterial thing where we sell experiences and not the actual product.

So in this case even though I have a lot of this garbage around my place, I have no problem parting with it since I’ve already had my experience with it. I actually hardly consider a lot of material goods as valuable since it takes up space and I don’t know if I displayed or showed it off at all, would it make any sense since I know who I am. Why do I need other material things to show off who I am to myself?

However TL:DR shit aside, here’s the question. Basically do you guys have a lot of shit in your past cluttering up your house/home/apartment? Does it get in your way? What’s the oldest stuff you own? Why do you keep it around and if it isn’t important why haven’t you gotten rid of it? What was a huge chunk of your past life you gotten rid of and how did it feel? If you have a family what do you give to your kids to experience and what do you keep in storage away from them for only yourself (insert porn lols reference.)

I’m basically going to go through a DS game sale and probably craigslist this shit, so that’s why I’m bringing it up.

OC

#2

no i don’t even have furniture

i live in a 2 floor 4 bedroom 4 bath house with just a desk monitor and bed

#3

Everytime I see TL:DR, I think, Tekken 5, Dark Resurection… ?

Must have something to do with the gave up on life, don’t give a shit thing…got it all figured out…making a statement. What is that show… Hoarders? Atilla the Hun in CVS3? Not following you…

#4

I throw shit out all the time, I can’t stand the idea of being a hoarder and running out of space.

#5

I keep way too much shit. If I was organized, it’d be okay but instead it just sits in piles on the floor.

#6

I try to throw away as much stuff as possible. I try to find excuses to throw stuff out.

When you have very little stuff, there won’t be nooks and crannies for spiders/bugs to dwell. When your home is very minimal in the sense of design and possessions, you’ll be less prone to tripping over or stubbing your toe. Everything will be easier and faster to clean. You’ll also hardly ever misplace anything.

I’ll keep a collection of rare finds, but that collection is small anyway.

#7

I throw everything out that I don’t use. I do a clearance of junk like every 2-3 months. I am a neat freak so yea don’t really have a problem with clutter. Or I just give them away to goodwill, family, etc…

#8

I keep around me:

Currently playing games
papers that are needed currently or for the near future

I keep garaged:

Games that I keep but not playing
Old paperwork
Very few keepsakes

Everything else gets tossed.

#9

Nah, I’m an anti-hoarder (except for money hehe). Whereas some people will try to find reasons to not throw away certain things, I have to try to find reasons to keep them, otherwise they’ll end up in the junk yard pretty quick. That has gotten me in bad friction with some people because they will not throw crap away they haven’t touched and that has been lying around literally for years. I can’t understand them (thinking specifically about my mom right now). I’m also a minimalist. Keeps life simple, uncluttered, and me from going broke.

#10

Man, I keep the most random shit around.

For instance, I never throw away any of my school work. I have pretty much 80% of all the school work I have ever done still on hand. That’s a lot of paper. I also can’t & won’t sell any of my college textbooks.

I also keep a lot of old computer parts around for no reason. I know that I will more than likely never use them, but I keep them “just in case”.

#11

I’m not of the PACK RAT mentality

#12

I’m almost ashamed to say I have the “packrat” mentality. I’m probably borderline “hoarder” status, like you see on those shows. It’s tough to simply throw various things away, even little pieces of paper where I sketched something… I have a lot of those around. That may just be an psychological “art thing”.

Other stuff— I still have most of the old EGM issues, starting from the early '90s. The older ones are more cherished. The only ones I’ve thrown away were from recent years, and only if absolutely nothing in that issue was of interest or potential future-interest to me.

I also still have several M.U.S.C.L.E. figures from the late '80s…this is when they were small pink figures,(and a few from the later-but-still pre-Ultimate Muscle era where they were different colors) and before the newer Saturday morning cartoon brought it back into popularity… I still have those toys called “Army Ants”, a couple of Starcom figures, and quite a few comics from the '90s…Spawn up to issue #32 or so, The Maxx, the Spawn/Batman crossovers, then almost anything related to Marvel’s Onslaught Saga(so legendary…I loved that story) in the later 90s. The oldest article of clothing I have is probably that Science Fair t-shirt I got way back in 5th or 6th grade…and a random t-shirt I got in 7th grade with Bart Simpson posing next to a car, saying “U Can’t Touch This”… just mentioning all this has brought back so many memories…nah, there’s no way I could throw away all this stuff.

…oh yeah… I also still have the Atari 2600, but the power cord was lost, unfortunately. A few years ago, I bought the Atari Flashback system, which was based on the 7800 design, complete with 7800-style joysticks. More recently, I still have the wreckage that was once my first Xbox. It’s great to keep a busted up system around so you can smash that in the occasional fits of insane rage…it’s obviously good to do that instead of smashing a working system. The “counting to 10” tactic is bullshit, y’know? That is not sufficient for high levels of anger and hatred.

#13

I have a ton of stuff I should throw out. Half my room is basically notepads/notebooks of scripts, drafts, sketches,plans, etc and other garbage ideas worth 12 years. It’s like Kevin Spacey’s room in Se7en except with white walls and newspaper clippings. The other half is various computer hardware in boxes.

EDIT:
lol I just checked in my closet and there’s several boxes of Maxim/Stuff magazine from 2002 - 2007. Wow I can’t believe I have all this shit.

#14

Wow…OP poster needs to chill out, not worry so much nor put value on silly things like stupid internet memes, and just do what he feels comfortable with. Especially when it comes to the privacy of his own place.

About 2/3rd into that post he just lost me.

“Today’s society and hyper-realism”? WTF?

Same here. I try to stay clean & optimized, if i have a lot of excess junk lying around i’ll never use or don’t care for. I either try to sell it, give it away, or throw it away.

I’ve got a whole closet shelf dedicated to nothing but excess stuff i’m trying to sell or somehow get rid of.

#15

I don’t know if I had a past life or not, and I couldn’t tell if it was from a past life or not.

In all seriousness, I’m in between pack rat and anti-hoarder. There are some things, like favorite stuffed animals, momentos, etc. kept because of their sentimental value. Until recently, I kept school stuff from as early as 8th grade, but I threw it out because I couldn’t clean my room, and I realized that my memories of my school friends and experiences will never go away, with or without the books in my possession. I’d probably have less stuff stuck in my room if my dad wasn’t such a pack rat. Seriously, I’m looking at old sofas, a mirror, TVs, and a PC lodged in my room because of him. Then there’s the microwave that’s older than me.

As for collections, the closest I have to that are my old Yu-Gi-Oh! cards that I’ll never get rid of due to the memories I’ve had because of them. That and the money spent on them.

#16

I’ve never understood the point of collecting stuff. I mean, what’s the point of sitting something on a shelf and not using it?

#17

I’m a nostalgic kind of guy, and also because I’m normally too lazy to throw stuff out, so they just keep collecting until they reach a point where it really bothers me. Hell, I still had my toys from my childhood until a week ago when my mom called and asked me if I’d like to give them away to my relative’s child. I had a Toy Story 3 moment as I sorted out the stuff and found my Buzz Lightyear action figure, dusty and out of batteries…goodbye partner…sniff.

#18

If America didn’t over consume, you wouldn’t have this need to constantly throw things out. I hope you guys are at least donating the stuff that works and recycling the stuff that can be recycled when you go through your regular trash creation cycles.

For me, I try to keep as few things as possible. The only things I really keep around are dvds, cds, books, and video games. I try not to buy too much of anything else.

#19

at work, i have the screen minimised as such that i can’t see the left column containing usernames, avatars etc. I can always tell when you post, i think to myself, “this sounds like million”, so i scroll left and i see if i’m right, i always am, i’m not sure why though.

anyway, OC, i dont keep much of anything in my apartment, but from my childhood i have all my old books and insect magazines (lol) at my parents house.

#20

When my parents kicked me out the house I learned how of my stuff I had left behind and all the money I spent on them not being able to bring them along. Not to say I couldn’t take the stuff when I left, but rather no where to put them. Lived on the street for a while until I learned I had no place to go and was going nowhere.

Ever since then I have sold most things and only keep a few things in my possession so when the time comes to leave again, I won’t leave anything behind. Really all I have are my clothes, xbox/tv/ssfiv, and a computer.