suomalainen wrote: ↑Sat May 03, 2025 9:04 am
Do you ever have the sense of ".... siiiiiiigggghhhhhh ... I don't want to do this any more?" I get the sense that you don't, but would be curious if you have any thoughts around that. At least in this area of your life, you don't seem that impacted by some variation of hedonic adaptation, but perhaps it's just that you're able to compartmentalize it into these 3/1 chunks of your life.
I have thoughts.
I just counted up my relocations while making coffee. I moved out from my parents 30 years ago. Over that time,...
I've moved 11 times.
Lived in 3 different countries.
In 3 different states.
In several different types of housing: dormitory, extended stay hotel, rented apartment, RV, rented house, and owned house.
As a single and a couple.
Aquarium, dog, no children.
Car, no-car.
(Given that 10 of the 30 years has been in the same house we live in now, this makes the above list more "intense")
My thoughts:
The "siiiiigh"-effect depends on a combination of how easy it is to move and whether moving is a feature or a bug, that is, something you want to do for its own sake (primary reason) or something you have to do because of something else like a new job (secondary reason). The biggest sigh obtains from having to do a hard relocation you didn't really want but have to do anyway... for reasons.
Some of my moves have been exceedingly easy: If all your stuff fits in a couple of suitcases, it's easy to pack up and bring with you. If your career or dreams force you to move a lot, it makes sense to keep yourself light. Early in my career I was warned against collecting books, for example. Same goes if the move is short (e.g. intra city) and you can transfer location with a few car/truck trips. You can be done in less than half a day and keep most of your "infrastructure" (see below).
Our hardest move in terms of stuff was rented house->RV because it required getting rid of a lot of stuff (all the furniture, big DVD collection, decent book collection, appliances,...). This process took weeks. This can be further complicated insofar you own something that is so heavy/big you can't just lift it, like a 300lbs lathe, for example.
Another factor is whether you're dependent on a lot of local "infrastructure". E.g. if you mostly have local friends, local family, local bank, local doctor, local plumber, ... then moving is harder because you need to build all that back up again. Conversely, if you have global friends (online), work in an international community (not to be confused with a community of internationals), use an international bank, ...and have the landlord deal with plumbers, etc., then it gets much much easier because much of your life is location-independent. Partners, pets, and presumably children complicate this insofar any of them are locally-minded---otherwise, also easy.
Moving to/from rentals just requires ending the lease, cleaning up, and finding a new place to rent.
Moving out of something you own takes a lot more effort.
Resetting also comes with some constraints. I can tell by contrasting and comparing the fact that we've lived in this house for 10 years. That's nowhere near as long as the 20-40 years that many people have spent in the exact same place (or the generations some families have done) but it gives an idea. "Resetting" means never really getting all that far from the "starting line". The roots---in the most generalized sense of the word---never go that deep. Of course some people grow these roots faster than others. Some also enjoy that process more than others. For example, growing a few tomato plants in a bucket takes an hour to set up. OTOH it took us 5 years here to build up the soil enough for productive French long beds and while I enjoy the results, I absolutely did not enjoy the process of working the soil. Likewise, it's easy to populate a new place with Ikea furniture. Populating it with used furniture requires a bit more effort. Actually building new furniture to match the dimensions of the new home is A LOT of effort. Maybe that's welcome if you're looking forward to spending a few hundred hours in the workshop ... but if you aren't, it isn't. However, again, it very much depends on WHAT part of your life is being reset. If you enjoy bespoke furniture and don't care about discovering a new marketplace, that's a tough reset. OTOH, if you enjoy discovering new shops but don't enjoy having a history with your garden soil, then a reset is a welcome feature.
Overall, you can set your life up so moving is pretty easy and almost routine---definitely nowhere near the top of "most stressful life events". Or ... life can be constructed to make moving almost impossibly difficult.
This was a very long-winded way of saying this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow_(psy ... cteristics Depending on what you're doing, how often you do it, and why you're doing it, moving can be either exciting, boring, or dreadful depending on how difficult you've made it for yourself (y-axis in flow chart) and how experienced you are (x-axis).
Unfortunately, simply relying on the rotating contents of the Newly Arrived book rack at the public library does not provide quite enough novelty for this Goldilocks (sigh.) Probably I will have to resign myself to chipping in 50/50 on more travel-type adventures with my family and female friends. Although, I am actually more motivated towards seeing if I can get the Primitive Technology guy to teach me flint knapping and basket weaving with natural fibers. Unfortunately, I simply do not know if it is moral (the right thing to do) to enter into a short-term open contract for skillz and sex exchange with a man, because my Fi is in my 7th position blind-spot. My tertiary Fe only informs me that it might be wrong if I think the man will end up with hurt feelings if/when I end contract. Of course, it is also possible that I could just attempt to barter homemade pie and conversation for exciting new primitive technology skillz, but it has been my experience that it usually doesn't work out that way, even if my self-image is "old, chubby, like Aunt Bee, so sexually neutered."
