The younger you/me/anyone is initially defined by our stuff. It helps us understand who we are. When you move out for the first time, you look at your stuff and ask, "What do I need to be me in my new place?" or maybe you say, "I don't need any of this. Like a snake shedding her skin, I'll fill my new place with a new me."

Eventually you become sufficiently fascinating (or sufficiently impoverished) to define yourself by your presence alone. You become "unaccommodated man."

King Lear in the heath when he comes upon Edgar:

Why, thou wert better in thy grave than to answer with thy uncovered body this extremity of the skies.—Is man no more than this? Consider him well.—Thou owest the worm no silk, the beast no hide, the sheep no wool, the cat no perfume. Ha! Here’s three on ’s are sophisticated. Thou art the thing itself.

Unaccommodated man is no more but such a poor, bare, forked animal as thou art.—

Off, off, you lendings! Come. Unbutton here. (tears at his clothes)

King Lear is a play by Shakespeare.

flagamuffin

Mostly you realize that you can no longer haul all those things (books mostly) with you on wheelbarrow behind you and you begin to shed.

It's awful at first. And then it isn't.

As for me: I've been living in a tiny apartment for six weeks, 5000 km from all my stuff. I came here with a knapsack and a carry on. But in some ways, I've been richer than ever before.