I prefer the physical couch

:computer: In the BBC today they have a story titled “Cult of less: Living out of a hard drive.” Apparently there are people whose main possessions are their electronic ones. This, I think, is taking minimalism a little too far.

One person featured in the story doesn’t even have a physical address, only a web address to identify him. He sleeps on friends’ couches. Which to me also makes him a moocher. I’ve opened up my couch to friends before, once even for a week while they were between apartments. I myself have done that for a week when I was between apartments. But it wasn’t a way of life. His life might be less cluttered, but what about the lives of others that he’s cluttering up?

So I like having an actual physical address (I love the book Maniac Magee for that very idea of having an address that is yours). I also like having my own physical bed and couch and fridge and stuff.

I’m also not quite the techno-maniac in that I prefer reading physical books with pages and I prefer hand writing my journal.

But I do handle all of my bills and such online and paperless. And a big thing on my to-do list is to figure out how to scan in all the papers that I have boxed up so I can save them on a CD (or 2) and shred the papers. That would be awesome. And take care of several boxes I have stacked in the closet too.

All of my photos are digital any more. And the first thing I do when I get a new CD is rip it onto my hard drive. There are a lot of things that I can keep on the computer and it makes it very handy to keep them there.

But as long as I’m a physical being there are certain things that I need to actually be physical in my life and not merely a series of electrons.