<story><title>Owning nothing is now a luxury, thanks to a number of subscription startups</title><url>https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/08/style/rent-subscription-clothing-furniture.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>mark_l_watson</author><text>I have thought about this lately because my wife and I moved to Illinois so I could accept a job managing a machine learning team. I retired and now we are just now moving back to Arizona. I spent five hours yesterday watching our stuff being wrapped and put on a truck. Lots of possessions.&lt;p&gt;The thing is, I have some stuff that I really like. A teak bookcase I bought in the 1970s when I got my first real job after finishing school. A huge teak desk my wife bought me 20 years ago. My wife has some furniture her grandmother had and that she grew up with. We also have art and things we have bought while traveling around the world.&lt;p&gt;I see the advantages of not being encumbered by ‘stuff’ but some possessions help define our personal history and are simply a pleasure to own.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>abalos</author><text>This is similar to a realization I had the other day: for many people collecting things is less about the objects and more about the memories and nostalgia and associated with those objects.&lt;p&gt;I have been having a lot of &amp;quot;identity&amp;quot; problems lately, and it occurred to me that very little of what I own has any substantial story about it nor does it say much about who I am as a person.&lt;p&gt;The objects we collect exist as affirmations of the identity we&amp;#x27;ve chosen for ourselves.</text></comment>
<story><title>Owning nothing is now a luxury, thanks to a number of subscription startups</title><url>https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/08/style/rent-subscription-clothing-furniture.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>mark_l_watson</author><text>I have thought about this lately because my wife and I moved to Illinois so I could accept a job managing a machine learning team. I retired and now we are just now moving back to Arizona. I spent five hours yesterday watching our stuff being wrapped and put on a truck. Lots of possessions.&lt;p&gt;The thing is, I have some stuff that I really like. A teak bookcase I bought in the 1970s when I got my first real job after finishing school. A huge teak desk my wife bought me 20 years ago. My wife has some furniture her grandmother had and that she grew up with. We also have art and things we have bought while traveling around the world.&lt;p&gt;I see the advantages of not being encumbered by ‘stuff’ but some possessions help define our personal history and are simply a pleasure to own.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>grecy</author><text>Keep it if it brings you happiness, after all, that&amp;#x27;s the point.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s the rest of the stuff that can go. I helped a friend move last month. After we&amp;#x27;d been to the 5 places she kept her stuff, we discovered she had 5 coffee machines, 5 cutting boards, 5 juicers, etc. etc.&lt;p&gt;The things you describe make you happier and are not stuff. The things I described are just stuff.</text></comment>