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Stuff and more stuff
By Melissa Martin, PhD
Americans love stuff. And consumerism has reached an all-time high in the USA.
We put stuff in closets, basements, garages. And attics. Drawers,
boxes, and containers. Shelves, cabinets, and tables. Stuff-holders.
Purses, back-packs, and bags—we like to take stuff with us.
Women own she-sheds and men own he-sheds. Outdoor buildings for more stuff. Rented storage for more stuff.
Birthdays and holidays, we get and give stuff. Weddings and
anniversaries, we get and give stuff. Graduations and ceremonies, we
get and give stuff. Souvenirs and tee-shirts—vacation stuff.
Collectors collect stuff. Antique stuff. Modern stuff.
We donate stuff and throw away stuff to make room for new stuff.
We buy larger vehicles to transport more stuff. We buy larger houses to
hold more stuff. We build detached garages to store more stuff.
Kids want big, bigger, biggest. The latest gadgets or gizmos. “Look at
my stuff!” Parents throw money into a dark hole instead of giving kids
what they really want and need—a parent’s time instead of stuff, stuff,
and more stuff.
Companies spend boo-coo bucks on advertising to entice, manipulate, or
scare us into buying stuff. Americans are consuming fools.
We buy lots of cheap stuff from China—a country that scoffs at human
rights. American dollars help finance China’s military—a totalitarian
regime.
Estates and auctions sell dead people’s stuff. Humans aren’t born with
stuff and when we die stuff stays behind. No stuff in the uterus and no
stuff in the casket. “You can't hook up a U-Haul to a hearse,”
proclaimed Randy Frost.
We visit museums to gander, glimpse, and glance at stuff.
Wisconsin is home to the Mustard Museum. It holds a collection of 5,700
mustards from all 50 states and more than 70 countries. The Allen
County Museum in Lima, Ohio houses a peculiar exhibit of things
swallowed and removed. Visit Minnesota to see the SPAM Museum. Yes, I
agree that historical stuff can be interesting, but it’s still stuff.
Landfills are full of discarded stuff. We’ve polluted land, sea, and
sky with stuff. The Earth cries out, “Stop wasting me on your useless
stuff!” The US is experiencing a stuff epidemic. The graveyard of
abandoned technology is full. Dumpsters of defunct computer components
abound.
“WALL-E” is a 2008 computer-animated science fiction film about a trash
compactor robot on deserted Earth. He cleans up the garbage that humans
left behind. Where did the people go? To another planet to stack up
more stuff.
What happens when shopping spirals out of control, and in some cases,
becomes an addiction? “Compulsive buying is characterized by excessive
preoccupation or poor impulse control with shopping, and adverse
consequences, like marital conflict and financial problems,” according
to a 2019 article on Psychology Today’s website.
Humans attach their own meaning to stuff. Memories are embedded into
our stuff, so it becomes difficult to give away or discard stuff.
Do we really need all this stuff? And when does too much stuff turn into hoarding?
According to Randy O. Frost and Gail Steketee, co-authors of “Stuff:
Compulsive Hoarding and the Meaning of things,” people keep items and
objects for various reasons. We have a use for it, we don’t want to
waste it, we like it, or we keep it for sentimental reasons. “Recent
studies of hoarding put the prevalence rate at somewhere between 2 and
5 percent of the population. That means that six million to fifteen
million Americans suffer from hoarding that causes them distress or
interferes with their ability to live.”
What will happen if we simplify? Our economy thrives because of stuff.
Closets bulge with clothes that are too little or too big because
weight goes up and down. Or we desire the newest fashionable apparel.
Does the world need another clothing brand? More lotions and potions?
More new-fangled toys?
Blessed are the recyclers. Reduce, reuse, recycle. “Recycling is the
process of collecting and processing materials that would otherwise be
thrown away as trash and turning them into new products. Recycling can
benefit your community and the environment.” www.epa.gov.
Do you own stuff or does stuff own you? “The folly of endless
consumerism sends us on a wild goose-chase for happiness through
materialism,” declared Bryant McGill.
Melissa Martin, Ph.D., is an author, columnist, educator, and therapist. She lives in Ohio.
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