Some Musings on Nomadic Life

[emanix]

This afternoon I came in to a conversation on facebook inspired by this article: 6 fascinating people who own almost nothing. The conversation wandered into how a lot of the folks who claim to be embracing minimalism and the 'no possessions' lifestyle (and who often seem quite smug and self-satisfied about it) do, in fact, rather carelessly rely on

Comments

[theozzardofwiz]

I have to say that as an introvert, the idea of not having a guaranteed place to which I can retreat is terrifying.

[ext_735460]

It seems to me that the biggest factor making this hard (aside from cultural inertia) is the whole job-thing. I know I could do basically my entire job from any location with a sound Internet connection, and yet it's so hard to get that kind of freedom. I'm so close to getting it at my current role. If I manage it then... well, I might try emulating your approach some time soon.

[edm]

One of the things I've noticed over the last few years, is that it's not just what's being sold, but often what's being given away too: conferences seem especially bad for this "giveaways that you don't want" effect. Life got better when I started looking at it as refusing to take responsibility for (getting rid of) "junk" that someone else didn't want. (Saying you "don't want a conference t-shirt" causes no end of confused looks, at least at IT conferences...)

Ewen

[serina_ds]

I've been wanting a non-location-specific job for a while now, and I have lots of things I just can't do because my workplace won't allow me to do them whilst not in the office, 9am-5pm. Even though I basically just spend the whole time sat at my desk typing even when I'm in the office. I'd love to try wandering around for a bit, but I doubt that's going to be an option for me anytime soon.

In terms of the amount of useless stuff around - yes, I agree! I try to cut my shopping down by thinking about where I would put it. Everything in my flat has a place, and unless there's a space for a new thing, I don't buy it. That forces me to think about having it in my space, and living with it, and the space it would take up.

As another introvert - same here! The idea of not having some space I can just curl up in and not be around people is kinda scary. I found myself literally huddled under a blanket on the sofa the other day because I had a partner staying with me for a week and sharing my bed, and I couldn't get away. And I just shut