My name is Vincent, I'm reaching my 29th this summer, I live in Budapest, Hungary and I am on my way from a collector/hoarder to a minimalist.
I've met minimalism around eight years ago, almost the same time when I met my fiancée. Her brother always declared himself as a minimalist. Back then I thought about minimalism as a bullshit factor of the modern lifestyle and arts.
I was in my early twentys, trying my wings in the workfields. I was careless and I felt free. With a job it might sound strange, but after the high school and everything, my first part time job, which meant 5 work hours a day and four days a week, felt like freedom at its best.
And there was the salary... It wasn't much, it was about 50.000 HUF per month (approx. 200 USD back then). As I said that's not much, but after the 5000 HUF pocket money per month that I was living on...(well that's a lie, because I was still living with my mother, which means I did not have to pay rent, or for food, and the money was enough to buy me at least one new collector action figure, and three or four lunches at KFC...goodbye teenage abs)
So from my salary I could buy myself anything I wanted, and back then that meant I will buy anything I felt like I need.
That meant endless weekend journeys to the local flea markets, weekday afternoons spent in bookstores and comic shops and so on and so forth...
My room started to fill up with antique brick-a-bracks, action figures, books, CDs and DVDs and who knows what else, the space was as cluttered as the japanese subway. I felt the "horror vacui" taking over me. I wanted every inch of my space to be exactly something that screams unique. Sooner my chamber looked like an old theater's prop room, or some strange store from a victorian short story.
But I loved it, that was my haven.
Then time moved on, so did I.
I met my fiancée (girlfriend-back then), and after two years of relationship we moved in together, to a 527 squarefeet flat which I inherited from my grandfather.
That was my first moving, and I didn't realise that I don't have to bring EVERYTHING with me from my Mother's, so that happened.
I brought all of my stuff, (furniture exluded, because I left home my old bookshelves, writing desk and wardrobe. I only took one shelf, and my bed with me) that means hundreds of books, lots of DVDs and CDs, many many figures and toys, kilogramms of LEGO and enough antique clutter to open a small shop.
Because with the first round only my bed and a sportbag full of clothes came with me, the real size and weight of my stuff didn't really got my attention, just after we started to pack out and I had to realize that more than half of my stuff does not have a place.
You probably think that was the first time I started to worry.
That did not happen.
The amount of my stuff was so huge that I could not realize the lifesized weight of it. Of course I started to minimize, but the size of the minimizing was also very minimal...
Started to sell some of the action figures on the internet, donating about 200 books to my workplace (when this took place, I was working in the Underground Fear - Horrorlabyrinth as a scareactor, the books were great props in some of the scenes). etc.
And aswell as things went out, new things came in, so it was something you could call a hoarding spiral.
I wanted things, I wanted to collect something, I needed these things to feel some kind of fullness of my life, because all the way here, starting with my childhood I was surrounded with things, so it seemed as an important part of life.
As it turned out eventually: It is not.
Before I continue I have to show you some pictures in my next entry, then you can see everything.
I'm not ashamed nor embarassed because of the clutter that was once so important in my life, so I think some pictures will paint a nice picture about the real deal.
For an appetizer here's a montage that I was so proud of, it even made to my Deviantart account, with the title: Cabinet of curiosities!
I've met minimalism around eight years ago, almost the same time when I met my fiancée. Her brother always declared himself as a minimalist. Back then I thought about minimalism as a bullshit factor of the modern lifestyle and arts.
I was in my early twentys, trying my wings in the workfields. I was careless and I felt free. With a job it might sound strange, but after the high school and everything, my first part time job, which meant 5 work hours a day and four days a week, felt like freedom at its best.
And there was the salary... It wasn't much, it was about 50.000 HUF per month (approx. 200 USD back then). As I said that's not much, but after the 5000 HUF pocket money per month that I was living on...(well that's a lie, because I was still living with my mother, which means I did not have to pay rent, or for food, and the money was enough to buy me at least one new collector action figure, and three or four lunches at KFC...goodbye teenage abs)
So from my salary I could buy myself anything I wanted, and back then that meant I will buy anything I felt like I need.
That meant endless weekend journeys to the local flea markets, weekday afternoons spent in bookstores and comic shops and so on and so forth...
My room started to fill up with antique brick-a-bracks, action figures, books, CDs and DVDs and who knows what else, the space was as cluttered as the japanese subway. I felt the "horror vacui" taking over me. I wanted every inch of my space to be exactly something that screams unique. Sooner my chamber looked like an old theater's prop room, or some strange store from a victorian short story.
But I loved it, that was my haven.
Then time moved on, so did I.
I met my fiancée (girlfriend-back then), and after two years of relationship we moved in together, to a 527 squarefeet flat which I inherited from my grandfather.
That was my first moving, and I didn't realise that I don't have to bring EVERYTHING with me from my Mother's, so that happened.
I brought all of my stuff, (furniture exluded, because I left home my old bookshelves, writing desk and wardrobe. I only took one shelf, and my bed with me) that means hundreds of books, lots of DVDs and CDs, many many figures and toys, kilogramms of LEGO and enough antique clutter to open a small shop.
Because with the first round only my bed and a sportbag full of clothes came with me, the real size and weight of my stuff didn't really got my attention, just after we started to pack out and I had to realize that more than half of my stuff does not have a place.
You probably think that was the first time I started to worry.
That did not happen.
The amount of my stuff was so huge that I could not realize the lifesized weight of it. Of course I started to minimize, but the size of the minimizing was also very minimal...
Started to sell some of the action figures on the internet, donating about 200 books to my workplace (when this took place, I was working in the Underground Fear - Horrorlabyrinth as a scareactor, the books were great props in some of the scenes). etc.
And aswell as things went out, new things came in, so it was something you could call a hoarding spiral.
I wanted things, I wanted to collect something, I needed these things to feel some kind of fullness of my life, because all the way here, starting with my childhood I was surrounded with things, so it seemed as an important part of life.
As it turned out eventually: It is not.
Before I continue I have to show you some pictures in my next entry, then you can see everything.
I'm not ashamed nor embarassed because of the clutter that was once so important in my life, so I think some pictures will paint a nice picture about the real deal.
For an appetizer here's a montage that I was so proud of, it even made to my Deviantart account, with the title: Cabinet of curiosities!
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