Last summer, I wrote that clearing my house of accumulated junk, becoming stronger physically, and getting my finances in order were linked. I had a clear intuition about this, but I wasn’t quite able to articulate the nature of those links. I think I’ve had some insight into that recently, or at least one aspect of it.
Over the holidays, I started going through a lot of stuff, primarily CDs and DVDs, and the bottomless hell of books and papers. Other than those that my daughter’s band produces, and the albums of a few other independent musicians that I feel moved to support, I basically never buy CDs any more, and, with all the free streaming content available, I haven’t bought a DVD in years.
But I have continued to buy books. For years, when my children were younger, I could justify nearly any book purchase as “building a home library.” That was a default rationalization, and it’s barely available to me anymore, as I would only be buying books for my youngest son at this point. However, despite the unavailability of that excuse, I have continued to buy books for myself. I am especially susceptible to books of poetry; books on gardening and garden design; books on ways to mitigate climate change; certain kinds of philosophy and how-to books; and quirky or off-the-beaten-path stuff, such as books on unusual Japanese words or the collected letters of Carl Jung.
When I would buy these books, it seemed really important, somehow, to have them. Now that I’m slogging through this morass of printed words, I’m asking, What the hell was I thinking when I bought this? I’ve barely looked at some of these books. I got them for “reference” or something; I toil to remember the reasoning.
But I do remember the feeling before I buy, because it’s something I’ve indulged in pretty recently. It feels, in some way, that this particular book is going to serve me, add meaning or dimension to my thinking or my practical life. This is occasionally true, but only rarely.
So this past year, since I’ve been trying to spend as little money as possible, I have bought very few books, but I have considered buying many books. Essentially, I’ve successfully talked myself out of these purchases with an economic argument: Don’t spend the scrilla.
Wading through many of my books these past few weeks, identifying so many of them that no longer serve, and then being faced with the task of deciding their fate—Do I post them on Amazon Marketplace? Would they be more likely to sell on Facebook Marketplace? Should I just drop them off at EcoThrift? Could I donate them to a local school?—it’s all given me a new perspective on book buying. I’m feeling the burden of having this stuff, and also feeling impatient with my younger self for having brought it all into the house.
That new perspective came into play when I went on Amazon recently to look up a book that I’ve been curious about, but that isn’t available through our library system. I had a completely different feeling than I’ve ever had before. As I mentioned earlier, this past year, I have been talking myself out of book purchases because I want to save the $$. This last time, I would have needed to talk myself into buying the book because I’m so averse to adding even one more thing to my way-too-many possessions.
This represents a major shift for me. I never could have thought myself into this new position; I had to get there by doing, physically going through oodles of stuff and developing a serious distaste for it. My major consideration now, when weighing the pros and cons of a potential acquisition, is determining whether and how often a given book will actually be used. If the answer is rarely or not at all, I don’t want it anywhere near me or my house. The exception, of course, is novels and other lighter reading that you pick up for ten cents at the library book sale, read through once, and then pass on to a friend or donate back to the library.