Decluttering

As I mentioned before, I decided to embrace minimalism.

For what I understood, there are many opinionated individuals who try
to push for rules, but to be honest I don't really care about that.
I don't apply rules, in the same way as I don't follow recipes when
I'm cooking.  I gained however some inspiration and motivation from a
couple of podcasts I follow.

An interesting advice I found was about stating one's own reasons for
the minimalist life choice.  In my case, these reasons are (from the
most to the least important):

- Consideration for the environment
- Consideration for my time (e.g. less time spent in cleaning, or searching)
- Peace of mind
- Aesthetic of a minimalist home

I've happily met in my wife a strong ally, since she hates clutter too.  As I
mentioned, however, it is not an easy journey.  Sentimental attachment to
objects is, in my opinion, the real nemesis of anyone who pursuits this path.

The other source of friction, at least for me, is the idea of causing harm to
the environment.  It is definitely true that the harm was already caused as
soon as the pointless object has been built/bought, but to be fair I don't
usually buy pointless objects to begin with.  I do own, however, lots of
usable things that were necessary in the past and now are not.

Selling is the key.  I've collected a pile of things that I'd like to sell,
but I'm very disappointed by how it is difficult to do so.  There are
specialized websites, but I find it outrageous how bad they are with privacy.
My wife came to the rescue: she disabled her Failbook account lately (too many
idiots), but she's willing to re-enabling it temporarily, so that she can help
me in selling all that stuff.

I find this acceptable, since she already traded in her privacy before, and
selling some objects will not harm it further.  It still manages to prove
difficult because of how many perfect idiots infest that 'social'[1].

Sometimes selling is not possible (nobody buys the item), and I want to do my
best for proper recycling.  I sent an email to the help desk of the local
municipality about it.  They have been very useful in the past, when I found
areas littered with garbage, and they sent someone to clean.  They have been
useful again in pointing me at a nearby recycling center.

The recycling center has a transparent well documented recycling process, and
I'm happy to know that they're doing their best to recover the materials, or
even to give a new life to things, like dismissed yet usable clothing.

A special mention goes to IKEA, as they always seem to care for the customer
and the environment.  Yesterday I dismantled a couple of drawers, and they
accepted the wood back: the material was in perfect conditions, but it is not
so obvious that a company accepts to recover it!  I even got some money back
for a couple of pristine items that I returned, although money wasn't my goal
at all.  Moreover, they offered of properly dispose of other IKEA items that I
decided to let go.

More work is in progress!


--
[1] I feel the urge of using quotes around word 'social', since I hate it with
passion.  Yet slightly less than word 'app'.