20ish years ago I complained to my college roommate that my math book was too big. He asked if I was gonna sell it back, and I said I couldn’t—they had a new edition out, so mine was worthless. Cut it, he said.
It was something I had never considered. Not for a moment. Books were sacred to me. Cut one? Blasphemy.
But he was right. And so I cut it. And it fixed all of my complaints.
What I learned is that some folks have a different mindset; they see the world as something to be shaped around themselves, rather than seeing themselves as something that should be shaped to fit the world. That’s been a useful lesson sometimes.
"What I learned is that some folks have a different mindset; they see the world as something to be shaped around themselves, rather than seeing themselves as something that should be shaped to fit the world. That’s been a useful lesson sometimes."
It indeed is. Thanks for putting it in words. I think I will try to adopt this mindset about certain things in life.
I hadn’t seen this before, but he’s near the top of my list as an example of this. One the common characteristics I see of people with this mindset is that they have high risk tolerance. Things are replaceable, and they feel safe exploring that trade space.
I agree this dichotomy exists and find it useful to ponder for balancing your life.
But there is another more specific one in your context: objects are to be respected vs objects are to be useful.
My mother takes a lot of care of her objects. Her stuff lasts for very long.
Mine don't, but my life is much easier than hers because I don't think twice about making something dirty or worn. It's not alive; it's meant to make my life easier, we built it for it.
Again there is a balance: go too far and you get bad ROI out of your object.
But books fall very much into that category for me. I write on them, cut pages, turn them into a mess. They get a wild life, and then I discard them.
They are not trophies or decoration. They are not sacred.
And yet I may buy the same one 5 times for many friends, or just because I messed one up.
That’s mostly where I’ve wound up as an adult. I think a lot of it comes down to financial stability. I spent a lot of my own money on books when I was younger. They embodied that cost in perceived value. But I learned that they might have more value than their cost if you’re willing to make them more useful.
We studied the book in order starting from chapter 1 in the first calc class up to the last chapters in calc 4. I was in the last class when he gave me the idea to cut it, so I cut out the last few chapters and carried a very thin volume of what I needed for the last class.
It was something I had never considered. Not for a moment. Books were sacred to me. Cut one? Blasphemy.
But he was right. And so I cut it. And it fixed all of my complaints.
What I learned is that some folks have a different mindset; they see the world as something to be shaped around themselves, rather than seeing themselves as something that should be shaped to fit the world. That’s been a useful lesson sometimes.