It's interesting how close his comments are to Fight Club. :-) From http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0137523/quotes http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0137523/quotes "Ma

It's interesting how close his comments are to Fight Club. :-) From http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0137523/quotes http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0137523/quotes "Man, I see in fight club the strongest and smartest men who've ever lived. I see all this potential, and I see squandering. God damn it, an entire generation pumping gas, waiting tables; slaves with white collars. Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don't need. We're the middle children of history, man. No purpose or place. We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our Great War's a spiritual war... our Great Depression is our lives. We've all been raised on television to believe that one day we'd all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we won't. And we're slowly learning that fact. And we're very, very pissed off. " Does this mean that the first rule of Hacker News is nobody talks about Hacker News? But seriously, the movie (and Paul's article) hits a nerve because we are indeed consumed by our stuff. There is a carrying cost for everything - every idea in our head, every physical item, every piece of clothes. Similar to what others have said, going abroad helped me realize how little I really need. I remember shipping all these boxes with me, only to not open most of them after I arrived. If I didn't think of something back home in storage over 6 months, would I ever need it? But it's still hard to avoid the weight of possessions.