Another Shipping Things Home Thread

[AssKissinger]

http://jetsetjapan.com/dealzone-economove.shtml

Is this thing a good deal?

Is it legit?

With all the charges it's like 800 dollars to ship a cubic meter of stuff to America. Fuck me! And time is running out.

[sillygirl]

I had EXCELLENT service with this lot:

http://www.econoship.net/

Provided boxes, drivers both ends loaded/unloaded EVERYthing for me....

[Charles]

Let me interject a few words on the subject.

I have spent the last month or so clearing out my deceased Mom's house. My siblings raided the house of everything they wanted or thought had any value, so there is nothing left here but useless crap. Now I have to dispose of all the stuff she accumulated through her entire life, and not only that, I found a whole cache of stuff from her father, insane stuff like 4 boxes filled with his checkbook registers and receipts since 1972. Why would anyone keep this crap?

So I urge people to take a long hard look at the crap they own. Do you own this crap, or does the crap own you? Why are you keeping this crap? Please please learn nonattachment to material posessions. You can't take it with you, and whoever cleans up after you when you're gone is going to look at all your crap, wonder why anyone would have saved it in the first place, and then they'll haul it all to the garbage dump.

I myself have failed to learn this lesson in the past. I moved from LA to San Francisco, and in my haste, I just packed up everything and I figured I'd sort it all out when I got there. I ended up throwing away 1200 pounds of useless papers, magazines, and other documents, stuff I could have thrown away before the move and it would have cut my shipping costs in half. But instead, I paid a high price to move the stuff, and then I had to spend 2 weeks at my new apartment just going through all the boxes and tossing out crap.

Long ago, I read an essay that espoused a radical, strange idea. The writer said that at least once in your life, you should discard every single thing you own, and move into a new house or apartment that is furnished with completely new goods. You should even arrange to have a new set of clothing in the new home, and you would strip naked on the doorstep, walk naked into your new house, and dress in your new clothes in your new home. I never quite understood this concept until now, after spending the last month dealing with piles and piles of someone else's accumulated crap. My mom gradually wasted away, and the less she was able to cling to life, the more she wanted to cling to her possessions. It was the most tragic aspect part of her illness, seeing her deteriorate, and how badly she wanted to accumulate more and more crap.

So take it from me: do not cling to all that crap. You don't need it. Throw out anything you can do without. And then take all that's left, and throw half of THAT stuff out. You can do without all of it. The one thing in this life that is certain, is that you can always get more crap. The hard part isn't getting more crap, the hard part is preventing yourself from accumulating too much crap.

[AssKissinger]

Thanks SG again since I think I hit you up for that info before and discarded it during my perma-disorganization/confusion


Chuck, good on ya mate. You are totally on to something there. I was actually thinking about starting a thread about throwing stuff away myself. It's one of the most liberating things you can do. I've been tossing out my shit on grand scale. Perfectly good sweatshirts, old photos, books, vids and so on. Even porn!!!

But I got shit that's too sentimental to part with. My vinyl records and music collection as a whole. Certain photos. Journals. This little crap Dell laptop (it's all I got!) my banjo and mandolin and a few changes of clothes. Plus some art and old band flyers. I'm just sending what I can through the post. The econoshippers things just go to ports like Chicago or Atlanta. That really doesn't do me much good. I think I can reduce my life to three two foot by three foot boxes plus my flight allowance. I'll carry on my mandolin and check my banjo.

[Charles]

Your stuff is all crap. Sell or discard more crap. You can always buy a newer, better mandolin or banjo. You can always buy new vinyl records on eBay, and in better condition than anything you currently own. Don't hang on to easily replaceable crap.
Save your irreplaceable memories like journals and pics etc. Then in a few years after you've spent more money hauling them around, you can throw them away because you now realize they are just more crap and a burden.

[Taro Toporific]