Comments on: tom’s story

By: Travis

Travis — Sat, 04 Dec 2010 11:19:58 +0000

Nice work

By: stoicsoda

stoicsoda — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 04:33:35 +0000

Early in life you recognize that everything is a starter deck of cards.

Then there are all the booster packs for just that deck.

Cast down the microchip and pick up the pencil.

By: Gina

Gina — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 17:32:39 +0000

Great job — I’ll just echo others sentiments — nothing at all against macs, but if you’re going to be a CS major you’d be much better off consolidating to a linux machine. If you were not going to be studying programming I wouldn’t mind, but I’ve worked in IT for 15 years and have a masters in computer science. A mac isn’t going to cut it. I work on unix machines every day, all day.

By: Hessiess

Hessiess — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 11:13:29 +0000

Instead of going the mac route, you could alternately keep your current hardware and switch to Linux, learning to embrace the extreme simplicity and customisability of Open Source Software.

I use Arch linux with a Tiling window manager (Xmonad), a text editor(Gvim), a GUI less Firefox(Vimperatior) and a whole host of command line applications. No desktop icons, no `start’ bar, no dock, no window decorations. Just a pure, bare minimum, keyboard driven(fast) computing experience with no visual clutter at all.

By: Alix

Alix — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 03:27:17 +0000

Well kudos to everyone, then! Sometimes it’s hard to tell, from a description of what’s been purged, just what’s left! I’ve realized over the years that I buy/keep so many things that I simply never, ever use. To release those and start using what I do keep is really so freeing, and so pleasurable.

You know what the best thing is? These students are going to save themselves literally thousands of dollars over the years, by not buying things they don’t truly want/need. If I’d woken up to the clutter trap when I was in college, I’d be far richer today!

By: Christine

Christine — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 22:35:18 +0000

Alix,

My home isn’t barren – I still have things that I love! I have an immense CD collection (music is a big part of my life) and I collect some other items as well. I just no longer keep things I don’t love/use. But as far as all of those books I no longer had a use for, clothes that didn’t fit right, and shoes that hurt my feet? They’re all gone. But I am in no way an extreme minimalist, nor do I have any desire to be! I can agree that living in an empty home would be really depressing. I like to be surrounded by things I love!

By: Mneiae

Mneiae — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 13:58:30 +0000

@Alix
Speaking for myself? No. It’s not sterile and sad; I have everything I need and thus everything that I want.

I will admit that the clean white that dominates my room bothered the girls in my dorm a little bit, so I bought a humorous poster. A poster that I don’t care a fig about but still fits on my list of 100 things that I own.

By: coco

coco — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 06:19:42 +0000

great story tom. i’ve never been a packrat and have always tended toward minimalism. in the last year or so, i’ve been whittling my things and household things down even more. i do live with a husband and 2 kids so it is a bit of a challenge. luckily they are pretty on board with me.

my kids (boys) are 9 and 11 and don’t have “toys” per se. they have a shared TV, computer and Xbox in their shared room and a football. lots of people think this is unusually cruel for some reason… these same people are either drowning in debt and or clutter…

By: Alix

Alix — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 04:16:46 +0000

You guys don’t have any purely sentimental or comforting possessions? I do veer towards minimalism, but sometimes I think people take it to an extreme, and it sounds rather sterile and sad. Just my impression… am I wrong?

By: Mneiae

Mneiae — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 01:47:17 +0000

I’m a college freshman as well who has relatively recently discovered minimalism. I also had that nagging feeling and I’m glad to have found what it meant. I’m in the process of exploring it, though I haven’t gotten there yet. For one thing, Tom has actually done something that I keep saying that I’ll do but haven’t: purging my room at home of everything useless to me. This is complicated by the fact that my mother and sister use my fairly empty room as a storage room.

But I think that something few people have considered is that college freshmen pack up everything that they need into the back of a car in a kind of forced minimalism. The majority of the things I have serve a real purpose. And when I move out of my dorm room, it only takes about 2 hours to get everything done.

The list of things that I own in my room is less than 100 items, if you don’t include clothing, which I don’t because I just spent 3 weeks without a) spending money on doing my laundry here and b) washing anything. When you don’t wear dirty clothing and you choose to only do your laundry at home, where it’s free, it’s a good thing that your clothes last you for a while. I notice that laundry doesn’t seem to be on this minimalist list of expenditures.

I applaud Tom for having so few expenditures, though I will confess that I spend nothing on gas and a lot more than he probably does on food. I’ve grown up in a family where dropping 150/person on a casual dinner is not unusual or horrifying, so I’m working on it.

I also have a power strip that spends most of the time turned off. I turn it on every once in a while to charge my computer, phone, Kindle, or Livescribe pen. I don’t have a TV. I don’t use iTunes. My room is generally silent and when I feel like listening to music I will go to youtube or Lala.

I got my Mac for free via one of my scholarships and I am very happy with it. Props to Tom for recognizing how awesome Macs are!