It's early morning on June 27, 2026.
Today is C1's birthday, and tonight I'm going to his place for a small birthday dinner. Yesterday he invited me to eat, and I asked why he was treating me—he said it was because it's his birthday, old man. Then I asked, "What are we eating?" He replied, "Yeah, what are we eating?" 😂.
The moving process is finally over. Now I have time to sit down and write a log. Moving was really exhausting because this time I only hired one Blue Rhino medium van plus a driver for the move. The main reason was that my standing desk and ergonomic chair couldn't be transported in my own car. I also used the van to move several large boxes. In the end, I spent just over 200 CNY to move everything. However, in between, I made about 5 trips with my own car, each time packed to the brim with stuff.
I moved from a place where the rent was 6000 CNY per month to one costing 3400 CNY per month. The parking fee also dropped from 300 CNY/month to 200 CNY/month. The new community's environment isn't as nice as the old one's, and the soundproofing is far worse—that's caused some trouble. The upstairs neighbors often walk around in the middle of the night, and in the morning they chop meat, making quite a bit of noise. The dolly we used for moving was left outside our door and was taken by a neighbor. It hasn't been found yet, which is truly frustrating. There are also many kids playing around, making a lot of noise. In short, the living environment after moving isn't as good as before, but it's not a fundamental issue. However, it's much cheaper, and the decoration style suits my taste better. The main thing is the price—why complain?
Anyway, it feels like I've gone through all eighty-one hardships. Tonight I finally sit back in front of the computer and start working.
It's been really tough. I think there might be two directions going forward:
- Declutter and simplify. Throw away or sell unnecessary things to reduce the burden of moving.
- Buy a house. No more moving—just buy a place and live there permanently. However, it's still possible that job transfers could cause moving issues.
Actually, I've always felt that buying a house is a deeper form of death and a deeper constraint. The rent-to-sale ratio in modern China is very low. In reality, if you buy a house, besides the mortgage, you also have to take on the responsibility of properly managing the property. You see many landlords who don't live in their own houses—they have to find ways to rent them out, collect them when leases end, and deal with maintenance and decoration. In short, it comes with a lot of hassle.
Unless your work and life are extremely, extremely stable. That also means, in this era of great change, you lose flexibility—which is indeed a deeper form of death.
So I've thought about it: perhaps I should continue renting and deliberately control the number of items in my home, keeping things lightweight and movable.
Another point is to proactively sell or dispose of items as secondhand or idle goods in advance.
If a person can convert all their belongings into cash at a reasonable price, then that person is the god of liquidity in ancient Greece.
