What is it?

Discardia is a new holiday.

Why do we need a new holiday?

Well, not exactly need, not as such, but this is a very good holiday. It doesn't involve obligations or expense or overblown expectations of specialness. It does not require you to interact with people whom you do not wish to interact with. In fact, it doesn't require you to do anything.

Okay, that doesn't sound too bad. When is it?

The exact days vary. It takes place in the time between the Solstices & Equinoxes and their following new moons. Sometimes it's short and sometimes it's long.

Odd. So what is it a celebration of?

Nothing.

What?

Discardia is celebrated by getting rid of stuff and ideas you no longer need. It's about letting go, abdicating from obligation and guilt, being true to the self you are now. Discardia is the time to get rid of things that no longer add value to your life, shed bad habits, let go of emotional baggage and generally lighten your load.

I'm beginning to like the sound of this. What else do you do during Discardia?

Well, bear in mind that obligation is anti-discardian, so you can do whatever suits you - including celebrating Discardia when it isn't Discardia. However, one thing you might like to consider is the idea of culminating the Discardian season with a particular act of letting go. For example, on the Discardian new moon you might decide that you won't buy anything or bring anything into your home and that you will instead just enjoy the fact that you have enough. Or you might make that your night to be completely selfish, avoid all social commitments and do something you really enjoy, regardless of what anyone else thinks or expects of you.

Where did Discardia originate?

In the strange mind of Ms. Dinah Sanders on, appropriately enough, another more obligation-ridden holiday: December 25th, 2002.

Well, that explains a lot.

Quite.

---

Exciting update as of summer 2009: I'm writing a book about Discardia! Want to keep in touch and hear when it will be available to order? Follow Discardia on Twitter. (What could be more discardian than a 140 character limit, right?)

Comments

[Permanent Discardian Calendar]

Seth made a little present for us: a Discardian calendar generator. Thank you, nice person!

[Robin Lindheimer]

Buy nothing day sponsored by Ad Busters might be an good event to
to help spread the word about discardia.

Not sure when it is, but I am sure you can find it on their web site. They generally get a significant amount of press coverage to the consumer goods gathering masses.

-Robin

[Dinah Sanders]

Good idea, Robin.

Buy Nothing Day is the day after Thanksgiving, traditionally the biggest consumer blitz of the year.

[academic coach]

This is Great.

[Finnegan W. Dorn]

The discardian season came and went, living hopelessly in a trailer left in a free festival, I towed it in a breaking down car to an ecological festival happening elsewhere in Avolon. The car blew up halfway, the key column had been snapped off as the car key was dropped. Ditching the car outside a graveyard, I was lucky enough to be towed the rest of the way to the green gathering, by some passing travellers in a van. I left the trailer outside, and gatecrashed as I had no tickit. Looking for a tow elsewhere, the trailer was suddenly snatched by theives in the dead of noght. (wait night). So I found an old style tent and hitched eight or so miles away from the ecological festival site only to find, only to find radiactive waste washing up on a beach. I began contracting a radioactive skin complaint under my beard, bought and ugly kid joe tape for two bucks, and took some shots of the radioactive sea pollution on a cheap camera( they had made a crepe seahorse at the ecofest and everything) So I hitched north passing by reading festival to leeds where slipknot and offspring gigged, some kid died in his tent, then the whole festival turned into a riot, with people burning stuff and smashing lights. I lost the camera and the old tent and went to seek a homeless centre in York, Yorkshire. Message transmitted from Volos, Greece 2007.

[Finnegan W.Dorn]

By the By the greek goddess of Chaos and discord in the original greek is known as ............. IRIDA !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Ole Phat Stu]

My father-in-law died recently.
You cannot believe how much stuff gets accumulated in a lifetime!
The town dump site is giving me 1/2 price after the 5th visit!

[Deanna Beeler]

How about a holiday preceding Discardia each quarter, called Donatia?

[John Kramlich]

Last year Americans threw away 12.5 million tons of reusable items. http://www.gigoit.org connects you to people near you who want the stuff you are throwing out. It's a free nonprofit service and covers the US, Canada and Britain.

[Edward]

wrote up some notes for the season

http://vielmetti.typepad.com/vacuum/2008/06/discardia-20-ju.html

at my last lunch w/folks here we talked about collecting and discarding; including some extreme stories of people whose families included people who collected scrap metals and vehicles measured in acres.

[Jessica Nielson]

Sounds weird but i respect the idea of discardia.. but sometimes the ideas or stuffs that we think we will never need in the future just might become handy in a particular time or another.

[Dinah]

In my experience and that of many of those I talk with, it's more than 9 times out of 10 that you never need that exact thing again and the rare times you do, the hassle of re-acquiring it is much less than the hassle of working around all that 90+% you didn't need.

Living lighter makes you much more flexible for dealing with very occasional exceptions.

[Dining Room Furniture]

That's an excellent idea. Someone always needs things other people are throwing out.