Last week, I lived on the floor, and I quite enjoyed it. When I moved into my new apartment, I had nothing. No, I didn’t have nothing. I don’t purport to know what poverty feels like; I just want to relate an experience. I did have things. I had everything in my luggage. I had clean clothes, a laptop, and a Wii. Yet the apartment was devoid of furnishments. The bathroom had a broken set of blinds.

It wasn’t until later in the day when I had really had things. My roommate and I picked up our things from storage. We had no car, so we wheeled heavy boxes over half a mile to the apartment. Then, we called up his friend who had a car. He helped us carry the TV and table, and then he helped us pick up my roommate’s things which he had kept at his friend’s place where he was crashing.

So we had things in boxes. But nothing else. Unpacking was sort of a futile exercise, when there was nowhere to put your things except the floor.

We had a TV yes, but no cable. More importantly, we had no electricity for several days. We had to steal electricity from our neighbors in order to charge our laptops and phones. We had to stumble in the darkness with only flashlights to guide the way.

It should’ve sucked, but it didn’t. Aside from the inconvenience of having to charge things, it wasn’t so bad. I could still read in the darkness. I could still work on my laptop in the darkness. I had to steal wireless internet from an insecure connection. The signal was weak and it would give out. Honestly, the whole ordeal was kind of fun. I felt like an explorer in my own home.

The best part was sleeping on the floor. Granted, I did not sleep on the floor proper. I didn’t own a sleeping bag, but I had a few sheets under me. I only recall one night of bad sleep. Other than that, I had no trouble sleeping on the floor.

I don’t know why, but there’s something deeply satisfying about not having too many things. For some reason, sleeping on the floor made me feel like a more disciplined person.

Now I not only have electricity, but cable, a chair, a table, my Wii set up, a couch, a kitchen table, and a mattress. I already feel like this is too much. It weighs me down. And now that I am more comfortable, I find myself wasting too much time on the internet and TV again.

Whenever people ask, “Why don’t you have X,” I enjoy denouncing their bourgeois tendencies. Air conditioner? Who needs that! Bookshelf? Who needs that!

I don’t need any of that. I don’t even need a bed, if it comes to that again.