It’s weird that when I was in my early teens I possessed a lot of items. Things I never really needed. And after a visit to one of my friends houses and after seeing his bedroom and how little possessions he had (although he and his family were fairly wealthy) I was amazed at how clean and free his room was from clutter, and how his life was also free from clutter too. Ever since then I’ve been trying to get rid of as many of my “offline / real world” possessions as possible and migrate them to the digital World. For example, I used to have a stack of around 70 music CDs - I only have 5 music CDs now because I’ve had them all placed on my PCs HDD and into my iTunes Library. I can’t wait to get rid of the last 5 CDs too, I give them to charity shops when I’ve finished with them, and they’re all great quality because I’ve taken care of them.
I also have a personal collection of around 40 DVDs - I’m slowly buying the same films on the iTunes Store so I can get rid of the DVDs too. The same goes for books and buying their eBook alternative, although this will take some time and plenty of money to spare. I’d like to get an Amazon Kindle, fairly soon, so not only will I have them on my PC but on an eReader device too.
I already have all of my documents in the digital World, and only have a pack of A4 paper in case I need to print something out, but I don’t really use paper nowadays, anything that needs to be put on paper goes into a Notepad text file or an Office Word document and gets filed away (digitally!). The only things I won’t ever be rid of are my actual technological devices, my clothes, and my sentimental items. I want as little physical possessions as possible and as much as I can fit into my online / digital World to simplify my life.
What say you guys and girls? Do you think this is going too far or something sensible? I’m not really looking for acceptance, but more of your opinions and views on something like this. Would you go this far, or have you already?
Yes, I do put a lot of trust into my computer, and my USB pens, and my external hard drive. But take care of your technology and your technology will take care of you Besides, everyone is banging on about migrating to the cloud, although I won’t be doing that for a long while, I’ve made some huge steps to migrate my World onto my digital World
Andrew Cooper