The Fine Art of Buying Nothing (and doing)

Been inadvertently perfecting my buy-nothingness lately. The other day I made the triple-threat mistake of going to: a hobby store, a Lowes, and a GFS outlet. All this on a day when I was already goofy, scattered, and unaware of what I wanted in the world.

The usual way that I make for myself in the world is to avoid deadlock. In those conversations not deciding and agonizing over where to go, what to do, I'm the guy who eventually blurts out "this is fucking stupid... we're going to ___, and if you really don't want to go, we'll meet up after." And if that pisses everyone else off and I walk off and no one comes with, that's my own burden. Resolving the impassible quandary gave me more mental satisfaction than getting everyone to go along with me. I just can't stand that metastable, activated but going-nowhere, state. But when it comes to myself when I'm by myself, it seems I can agonize over this for a seeming eternity.

So now I'm on a smaller cashflow, highly caffeinated, and going to a hobby shop (where there's thousands of fascinating widgets and projects I know I don't have time or follow-through for), and a hardware mega-plex (where there's hundreds of solutions for problems I didn't know I had), and a GFS (food-service sized portions and implements I don't need... I cook for myself). It was a fairly bizarre experience that left me unable to make the simplest decisions. Why? I normally would just go ahead and buy the thing that I was agonizing over - if it was ultimately a wasted $50, so what? Nowadays, not so much. And I could just throw it in the car and move on to the next thing. But that day was sunny and 70, and I was on the bike. So you'd think my available options would have helped me, but they didn't.

And then I went to the UMich Property Disposition Center the other day. Need a centrifuge? Robotic genetic analysis dispenser machine? Sun Sparc enterprise server? Shelves? Desks? Alas, I know my tendency is to buy because Look! At! All! These! Great! Deals! (on used crap). But here I am, in a brave new world. Perfecting the Art of Buying Nothing.

One of the many reasons I think of to buy a house. Stuff Projects. Widgets. And it would only make it worse, wouldn't it?

But this general situation is what I worry my problem is these days. I find it far too easy to decide for other people what is right and what to do. For myself, I see far too many possibilities - I can't decide. There's nothing too far from reasonably doable, either through force of will or creative solutions. So what do I do? Of late, I've been doing nothing.

Am I natural? I'm abhorring the vacuum, that's for sure.