I completely agree with Paul Graham’s latest essay, which he opens with the statement “I have too much stuff.” In the first year I lived in the Bay Area there were four places I called home, plus the very first week spent in the spare room of a co-worker’s apartment. All that moving around made me very cognizant of just how much stuff I had and how much of it was unnecessary.
Then, during the boom years of the late ’90s my Amazon addiction kicked into high gear; at least one box each of CDs and books were delivered every month. Since my household was relatively stable, 18 months in an apartment and then over six years in a townhouse, the cumulative effect was not too visible.
But when TS1 moved in in August 2002 the volume became very clear and so then, and again just before our move to this apartment, every possession was given the gimlet eye. Books were donated, given away or sold to the used book shop. CDs were scanned on our computers, backed up, and then sold to the old Tower Records store. Clothes that no longer fit went to Goodwill, and so on through other categories of stuff.
Now we are very conscious about bringing home new things. Books are borrowed from the library or bought at the used book shop or a deep discounter, specifically desired tracks downloaded from iTunes for 99 cents a piece rather than $12 or 15 for the whole CD (with a few exceptions, of course). Even cool tech, like my MacBook, the plasma TV or our iPhones, are replacing existing things. We haven’t bought any new furniture in years, other than a small table, though I admit to glomming a nice round IKEA table when we cleaned out the RawSugar office last Fall.
Graham also fingers corporate marketing and advertising efforts as key culprits in our consumption society. As he writes, “They make the experience of buying stuff so pleasant that ‘shopping’ becomes a leisure activity.” Fortunately not for me or TS1 but how many times have you and people you know decided to go to the mall on a weekend afternoon just to see what’s there? If so, what portion of the trips ended with new bags of stuff in the car coming home?
I’m not saying that marketing and advertising are all bad since, after all, I’ve done some of both myself. Both disciplines are merely tools for disseminating information about products in a form that engages potential customers and other stakeholders. Still, when behavioral research starts turning up telling us that preschoolers think carrots and other generic foods taste better when it comes in McDonalds paper wrappers we surely have a serious problem.
This also ties in with current ecological concerns, and not just climate change. Consider that each physical product you buy not only uses whatever raw materials it’s made of and the energy to produce it but also the materials used for packaging and transporting them to the store. Buying fewer things also helps reduce impossible or impractical to replace raw resources. After all, not only do we need to leave a healthy world for our grandchildren and their children, we also need to leave them raw materials to build the things their lives will require.
What’s clogging up your home, your living space, that you can do without? Can you learn to break free of the addiction to stuff and the marketing and advertising that drives so much unnecessary spending? My bottom line is to give real thought before buying things for yourself and you family. Every logo’ed t-shirt and ball cap, extra pair of jeans and that fancy glass picture frame which will only sit in a drawer you don’t buy is that much less to take with you the next time you move, gives you that much more living space and leaves that much more in the ground for future citizens of our global society.
BillSaysThis 