Travelling lightly, or in search of the essential life

So we finally managed to gather all our belongings in Zürich, where they will stay for the time being. For people like us, who move every two to three years, it’s important to travel lightly. Otherwise moving becomes even more of a headache than it is in any case. Domenico did a good job at this, after all, he was able move all he owns in one big go by train. For me, it took two major moves by train and several suitcases that had been moved in the course of the last year already (not counting the two boxes that had to remain on my office mate’s cupboard in Amsterdam). And this, after having given away about everything except books and clothes!
True, compared to people who move with a big truck, this is still light. But having to lug it around on trains convinced me that it was really not as light as it could (should) have been. Going through my things piece by piece when packing, I kept thinking “now what did I have to buy this for??”. You see it, you like it, and bang – you bought it, and even though it’s perfectly useless, it keeps following you around. Either you keep dragging it with you (and yes, I have brought some things from Zürich to Berlin, then Munich, then Amsterdam and now back to Zürich without seriously using them ever) or then you are forced to throw away something perfectly good. Otherwise, you have to go through the trouble of finding a new owner.
Whenever I have to move again, I decide a few months before not to buy useless things anymore. No, never to buy such things anymore at all.
Not to enter a bookstore before having read at least a part of all the other books I already own.
And then this hamstering urge. Everyone has his own weak spot. As physicists, our main work instruments are paper and pencil. Every conference provides a free notebook and pens. Every physics institute has a cupboard full of them freely accessible to its members. Let me make it short. Among the two of us, we collected three dozens of blank notebooks and writing pads. I shall not take any more notebooks before using up these! No matter how nice the paper and how tempting they are! The writing utensils we own easily number a hundred.
But that’s not the only thing. We also managed to accumulate several liters of shower gel among ourselves. Why don’t I just use stuff up before buying it new? Is this the famous consumer mentality?
Next time I move, I will finally do it right. I will not accumulate this huge amount of stuff. You will see.

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