Books and ego death: Part III
Today was a successful day, in terms of meeting my intentions. I spent time away from tech while working on simplifying my life.
Specifically, I worked on decluttering my personal library, an activity I started writing about last night. Part 1 goes over why, while Part 2 goes over how. This post is an update on what's been done so far.
Sidebar: I clearly have a habit of citing prior posts when providing context. It's an attempt to minimize repeating myself too much, so that I can sooner make my points.
At present I have 190 books in my personal library. Today, I moved 73 into the pile designated for selling next weekend. 21 were designated as safe since their value is obvious to me. 52 remain in maybe/purgatory so that I have time to mull over what value they bring me. The remaining 44 still need to be considered.
It's an exhausting activity, and it's no different from all the other times I've decluttered in my life. (Meta-motivation: the possibility that I never have to declutter my library again!) Decision fatigue is real, particularly when it stems from deciding what to keep or discard among one's possessions. By doing as much as I could today, the remaining days this week can involve shorter, more focused sessions.
Over the course of the day, I had three thoughts worth sharing, I think.
First, as much as I kept in mind Marie Kondo's personal ballpark of 30 volumes, I don't think I have or need a specific number of books to retain. It sort of cheapens the premise of a personal library to base it around a quantitative measure. Even so, I believe in constraints and recognize they can help with decisions. The compromise I came up with is a cap on books organized by purpose. So, instead of an individual number for my whole library, I'm considering: no more than 20 books for my library of D&D sourcebooks; no more than 20 books related to my academic discipline; and no more than 20 books on writing (both in reference materials and in musings on the craft). A cap of 30 books for general interest would apply to all remaining categories. So while this example presents a global limit of 90, I have more flexibility in sub-categories to make choices. This is akin to how I maintain my wardrobe: nothing gets added unless it is replacing something.
The second thought I had expands on this. How do I consider, even within a sub-category, what to keep? In perusing a few books on chess, I came across a great insight. One book focuses on chess openings, while another is a treatment on the endgame. The former noted that all players have to develop familiarity with chess openings, because every game has one. Meanwhile, the study of endgames is dependent on the reader's ability to reach that state of play. I thus moved the book on openings to "maybe keep" while moving the book on endgames to definitely selling. The same principle applied to other decisions: why retain books on obscure, advanced, arcane knowledge? I know the answer for myself: to satisfy my ego. But to retain books that focus on fundamentals—that's the value I want my personal library to contain. In the category of writing, for example, I deemed it more important to keep books on proper usage, rather than, say, a text on how to construct verse (I don't even plan to write in verse!).
The final thought I had was a mental trick that might've been helpful at the start of the day. I imagined myself with no books on my shelf, and I was offered the chance to construct one among the books in front of me. I remember coming across a similar mental trick in considering what to keep in one's wardrobe. The idea is to consider if one would pick an item at present, without regard for how long they've held onto something. (I think a great source of decision fatigue in decluttering is overcoming the sunk cost fallacy for every. Darn. Thing.) It's a method I plan to try when my mind is refreshed in the days ahead. For now, I'll enjoy my progress so far in letting go of not only books, but of aspects of myself that I once desired.