Today I once again found myself looking at a NAS (Network attached storage). This always happens every couple of months when Youtube (yeah I need to cut back) decides to recommend me a video about them. Something about the idea of having a bunch of stuff backed up on hard drives with the ability to access it at any time is very appealing. Particularly to someone like me who has collected various physical media/ stuff for decades for similar reasons.
What stops me, apart from the steep price of all the hardware (close to 1k for something somewhat basic), is I’ve come to a point in my life where I recognize the waste in amassing stuff. Yeah it’s cool at first to have this stuff and it’s comforting to have immediate access it. However, what ends up happening with a lot of it is it just sits and takes up space. It adds to the clutter while not contributing much of anything.
Digital stuff, apart from the hardware, might seem like an exception at first, but imagine you download a bunch of content (I mean legally rip them from media you own) Let’s say at minimum you’ve got 10 shows and 10 movies to watch. Are you going to watch them right now? Maybe one of them here and there, but what about all of them? My guess is probably not.
Why? Those 10 series/movies aren’t all that you’re ever going to be interested in watching. While you’re trying to enjoy them, new stuff that you want to engage with is going to be coming out all the time. Even if you’re the most jaded media critic, it’s almost impossible that there wont be something at some point that will make you develop this massive backlog.
That’s ultimately what collecting media does. Whether it be physical or digital, it makes a backlog of stuff. I’d argue it’s not necessarily a bad thing to have a backlog, and unavoidable with the amount of stuff out there. However where I start to find some fault in it is when I’m spending both time and money to maintain access to that backlog. A point that isn’t hard to reach sadly.
Time is finite, and what we think we’ll do someday might not necessarily line up with what we’re actually able to do. Even in something where we have almost total control like choosing how we spend our free time, there gets to be too many things competing for it. We often tend to let a lot of things compete for it.
What then ends up happening, at least in my case, is I often suffer from choice overload/paralysis. I’ll have the time to sit down and watch an anime or play a game, but I’ll have so much stuff that I’ve acquired that picking something I actually want to jump into is a big barrier. The outcome of which, all too often, will end up being me not choosing anything and instead being distracted by something (Youtube nowadays, but social media posting also)
I don’t believe everyone has to necessarily be like that. I’m certainly working on forcing myself to do things in situations where I’m too indecisive (to mostly positive results), and certainly there’s an argument that you generally have to force yourself to do anything (The brain is said to naturally pick the option of least resistance) However, there’s something to be said about limiting your options in the first place.
The older I get, the amount I want to do grows about the same as it did when I was young. I would say it grows even more since I realized my mortality. At the same time though, I’ve also started to accept that I’m not going to get around to everything. Not especially when even the stuff I do accomplish never completely leaves the backlog (If I like it, there’s a chance I might want to experience it again) Some things I’ve had to start taking some time to cross things off my list without touching them.
It’s not always a permanent thing. What I’ve found is that the stuff you really want to do will end up coming back on your list regardless. Though there’s also been many things I’ve acquired that even upon feeling some remorse of getting rid of, I’ve not really contemplated since. Primarily because it wasn’t always staring me in the face any time I looked on my hard drive or shelf.
I think that’s a big part of why I’ve started to look a bit more negatively on collecting things for the sake of having access to them. It’s just giving yourself a bigger backlog that you have to look at when it comes time to decide what you’re going to do. Sure initially it gives you a rush to acquire it, but is it worth the anxiety it gives later? Not in a lot of cases, I feel.
Physical stuff comes with a cost of space and the environment. Digital stuff comes with a similar cost. Sure that thing you don’t buy now might not be easily (legally) available in a couple years, but you’re not necessarily going to have to deal with that. Even in the unlikely chance you do, well it’s not like your life inconsolable. It’s more like “God this fucking sucks..” and then later “Hmm what’s this?” as you find something else to take the place of it.
I think what I’m trying to convince people (myself) of is that at times you don’t need to have a lot. You don’t need to collect a bunch of stuff, as cool as it is or as good as it makes you feel. Rather you need to focus in and figure out what you’re going to prioritize so that you have less moments of indecision and more moments of enjoyment.
You don’t need that NAS media server. You don’t need a bunch of physical media. You don’t need to download/buy every visual novel you find interesting. You don’t need to buy every attractive waifu figure out there. Cutting back and not worrying about it would even be a healthier thing in the long run.