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belenen

April 2021

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Expect to find curse words, nudity, (occasionally explicit) talk of sex, and angry ranting, but NEVER slurs or sexually violent language. I use TW when I am aware of the need and on request.

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moving my accumulated stuff back / ownership versus child-me the thief
icon: "gamine (a photo of me as a seven-year-old child, freckled with frizzy hair and a solemn expression, leaning against a tree)"

So Topaz is moving from the place they have lived the entire time I have known them, which is reminiscent of me moving because I spend probably a good half of my free time (or more) at their house. We have already taken 2 car loads to my house and there are still some things there that will need to be brought over. While it's sort of stressful and now my living room is once again filled with stuff that needs sorting and putting away, it also feels good to be pulling stuff back to my house.

I didn't realize that I felt sort of back-burner stressed about having so much stuff over there, but it makes sense because it felt disorganized, especially having my craft stuff over there. I feel low-level constant stress when my stuff is not organized, because it feels like I am not respecting it. Ever since I was a child, I have felt like things have feelings and all things want to be noticed and used. I feel like it is unethical to keep things you don't love or use because they could be with someone who will actually value them. That's why I am getting rid of so many of my books -- if I will literally never read it, I am disrespecting it by keeping it.

When I was a little kid I took this ethic of "whoever will love it most should have it" to an extreme, and I would steal from people if I felt they weren't loving their things enough. Some of my most prized possessions as a child were things I stole. I would also give away my things if I felt like someone else loved them more.

Now that I am an adult, I realize there are more things to consider than "who will love it most." While I still don't believe in ownership of anything you didn't make or customize, I know that other people do, and I know that people will feel violated by being stolen from, so of course I don't do it. But that's not because I think it is inherently wrong, but rather because of the effect it has within this society. I never want to cause someone to feel violated and that is a higher ethic to me than possibly anything else.
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I feel exactly that way about my book.

I have so many boxes of books right now that I'm not using and will likely not read many of again and I feel like I should donate them, or at least sell them to a used book store. But then I think of the way I grew up, with so many books around, and I want my children to have that experience too. But I don't know if I'm going to have any children, so I don't know if it makes sense to keep them. And when I think about them, I feel bad about how they're sitting unused.

Well, do you intend to have children? Are they books you could replace in 10 years from used stock? do you have a good local library?

I was raised in a house that didn't own many books I found at all interesting, but my parents took me to the library every 2 weeks for most of my childhood. I think if you can find the book at your local library, it would be fine to give it up. If most of your books are hard to find, I would hold on to them until you know.
I feel a similar way about things, that they should be loved. But I also feel like I love a lot of things that I don't use, and even someone who used them would probably not love them as much as I do, because I have memories of how I got them, or when I read them attached to them that make me happy to see them, even if I don't open them...

I fall in love with things way too easily. ;)
I also fall in love with things easily. One way I use to determine how much I love them is "would I feel sad if I lost this?" becauae there are things I love that I wouldn't necessarily miss, even though I enjoy their company.

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