from Hacker News

Help I can't become a digital nomad, I have too much stuff

by SoftwarePatent on 2/21/22, 4:25 AM with 81 comments

• by camillomiller on 2/21/22, 7:18 AM

  I’ve been around Digital Nomads for a long time and I’ve been working digitally and remotely for periods of time most of my life.

  The sense of eradication Nomads are looking for can bite you back quite bad. This is something seldom discussed in DN circles, especially by hyper-positive (or toxic positive) digital Bromads of the “I dropship therefore I’m an Internet Entrepreneur” variety. Digital Nomadism is also very often a form of postcolonial and Western privilege. A lot of DN-targeted content focuses on the individual radical choice of going against the typical societal expectations (settle down, get a house, own stuff). What they mostly miss is how this choice is made possible by the inequalities between the West and the rest of the world.

  That said, I still regard Digital Nomadism as a positive movement that could benefit from a bit more self-criticism.

• by ggm on 2/21/22, 9:00 AM

  If you have family, check in before you give the heirloom toy away, your brother or sister may kill you if they're harbouring dibs on it.

  I am still not forgiven for throwing away one half of Johnsons dictionary, the one with the "oats" joke despite it being mostly damaged, beyond repair and unsellably filthy.

  I'm writing this looking at a 15th or 16th C wooden stool my mother rescued from a skip. Kondo would have done for it when Chippendale or Sheraton were alive if not before. Now I have a 21st century flat with 21st century life and a 500 year old oak stool I still use to change light bulbs.

• by LAC-Tech on 2/21/22, 10:29 AM

  I don't think I want to go back working on a laptop on random furniture. I did it for almost two years, and as soon as I got a bigger place I bought two desks, a big giant chair, 32" monitor, fancy keyboard, external webcam, mic, etc etc - and I love it.

• by schrijver on 2/21/22, 9:55 AM

  I don’t live in the country where I was born, and neither do most of my friends…still our apartments are full of stuff… trinkets, art, rescued furniture… to me it’s part of what makes me feel at home and what makes it fun to stay with others!

  There’s this chastising of owning things (‘the things own you’) that comes up every now and again, but I think that could be reserved for when these objects stop being something you cherish and start to be something you consume: fast fashion, consumer electronics upgrade cycles, etc.

  In this article not owning things seems to be a prerequisite for a certain lifestyle of hopping around the world with a laptop, but if that’s your thing, why not simply rent out your apartment? It seems unlikely to be something you’d want to do for years on end. Although I’d be curious to see some data on that, digital nomad churn rate.

• by Brian_K_White on 2/21/22, 10:52 AM

  I could not live without various physical hobbies that require workshops full of benches, tools, parts, and materials.

  I don't just want to own a guitar and a recumbent trike, I want the hobby of hacking on guitars and bikes.

  Even the tools are their own hobby. I don't just want to rent a few hours on a 3d printer, I want to hack on 3d printers.

  And forget my vintage computers, those are right out. They need shelves full of irreplaceable ancient spare parts, and acessible not off in storage.

  Tourism is nice for a while but to be a tourist barely sampling your own life perpetually?

• by Reason077 on 2/21/22, 10:08 AM

  I somewhat agree about the storage unit. I've certainly spent far more on my storage unit over several years than the value of all the stuff that's in it. On the other hand, it's kind of nice having a safe place to store various things which have some sentimental value. It's also a good way to figure out what things you actually need in your life. Has something been sitting in storage for 2 years and you haven't missed it? You don't need it!

• by llampx on 2/21/22, 9:23 AM

  I've lived through minimalism brought about by moving every few months for a project, and I still miss some stuff that I had to throw away or that got lost. Some important things like documents that could have been filed better, some emotional stuff like mementos and souvenirs, and of course photos as negatives and CDs that were taken before digital cameras and cloud storage.

• by bartvk on 2/21/22, 9:07 AM

  The article contains a quote about using Craigslist to "store" your stuff. A friend of mine is a scientist and just lives wherever she can get a project. She once joked that she uses Ikea to store her furniture. It's so cheap, she just buys it whenever she moves into a new city or country, then sells/donates when she leaves, then arrives and buys again.

• by coder4life on 2/21/22, 7:37 AM

  Put it all in storage, beyond what you can take on a plane.

  Forget to pay the bill. Problem solved.

• by iam-TJ on 2/21/22, 10:01 AM

  Slightly left of topic, but the use of "nomad" in the context of "too much stuff" would be better described as 'asceticism'.

  Traditional nomadic life was about entire communities or extended families (rather than individuals), usually carrying their entire home and possessions with them either on travois or animals and/or carts, and travelling between home sites as the seasons changed or the food source moved.

  In current times it's not too challenging to carry one's entire digital possessions in a back-pack if you trust to there being an always-on quality network connection, but it'd be far more comfortable to kit out a mobile home, caravan, recreational vehicle, boat, or similar, if you want basics with you such as favourite clothing, personal items, and physical documents.

  A challenge of this minimalisation is overcoming built-in obsolescence of most digital devices that often leads to collections of older 'stuff' kept 'just in case', as well as connectors, adapters, wires, and other bits. Oh, and avoiding buying 'convenience' single-purpose devices.

  Having Siberian Huskies I once tried to figure out if I could live off the back of a sled and have the huskies be my means of transport. The sled would have needed to be 5 meters long and about 2 tall so I abandoned the idea!

• by blunte on 2/21/22, 10:53 AM

  Getting rid of stuff "properly" can be an overwhelming challenge.

  I know I can live with just two backpacks. So now I have a lot of decent/nice/expensive stuff that I don't really need but don't really know how to get rid of properly (without great effort).

  If I could find a reliable person or service who would try hard to find a good home/buyer for each of my items, I would happily give up 50% of whatever money was collected. But I just don't have the time or motivation to try to list and sell all my stuff.

• by anm89 on 2/21/22, 2:41 PM

  Forcing me to seriously condense my physical possessions was one of the best things to come out of my stint as a nomad.

  My whole life fits into a few boxes and I don't aim to change that until I buy a house that is explicitly the house I want to die in. Even if I rent an apartment or buy a house to stay in a city for a few years, I'm keeping to my "it has to fit in a 5x5 storage unit" or be cheap enough that I'm okay to give it away or leave it when I move.

• by tiborsaas on 2/21/22, 10:12 AM

  This is not really practical for many, but buying a place, keeping your s̶h̶i̶t̶ stuff and renting out the place is also a viable option.

• by loudtieblahblah on 2/21/22, 11:34 AM

  "in the future you'll own nothing and be happy"

  No thanks.

• by bamboozled on 2/21/22, 10:38 AM

  It's like, one needs to have stuff to survive, make nice food, do interesting things and create stuff?

• by hughrr on 2/21/22, 7:57 AM

  I met my first “digital nomad” a while back. I have considerably less stuff than he does. Does that make me a digital nomad?

  My philosophy is merely that I hate clutter and kipple.