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Guest Post: Is Anybody Else Tired Of Buying And Owning Stuff?
Submitted by Charles Hugh Smith from Of Two Minds
Is Anybody Else Tired Of Buying And Owning Stuff?
We are suffocating in stuff, physically, psychologically and spiritually.
I know this is a sacrilegious question, but is anybody else tired of buying and owning stuff? Is anybody else tired of dealing with all the junk cluttering up every corner of the room/house/nation?
Has anyone else noticed we have surplus stuff coming out our ears? And that therefore we don't really need any more stuff? Has anyone noticed the psychological consequences of constantly buying and managing possessions? Here is how correspondent B.D. recently put it:
Kids have a melt-down when they don't have the latest iteration of the (insert trendy electronica here) or if they are asked to tidy up the gargantuan collection of "stuff" they are slowly suffocating themselves with. Most kids these days don't have bedrooms anymore ... they have a small warehouse of goods in which they have a sleeping space.
Everybody has a warehouse of goods, even "poor" households. Of the four households on my block with one-car garages, we're the only ones who actually park a car in the garage. Everyone else's garage is jammed with stuff. And this is not an upscale neighborhood, it's working-class/renters.
Have you been to one of the many gigantic swap meets recently? You know, the kind with hundreds of sellers hawking everything under the sun. Our young friends (newlyweds renting one bedroom in a house, they don't own a car, both seeking fulltime work but currently living on one-part time job) recently described their visit to just such a sprawling cornucopia of over-consumption.
People are selling any and everything to raise some cash: birds, snakes, used iPhones, laptop computers, clothing, furniture, you name it. A guy was selling a guitar for $15. Our friend offered $5. The seller took $8. $8 for an acoustic guitar. Granted it was a cheap one, but $8? Was it even worth hauling it to the swap meet for $8? A set of strings costs $4.
"Almost new" bicycles--again, cheap, poor-quality versions--were being sold for $35. You can't even buy a replacement bicycle wheel for $35.
Were these stolen goods? Our friend asked the seller how he could sell bikes for so little money. The seller replied that he buys the contents of abandoned storage lockers for a few dollars and then sells the contents. (Apparently there is a reality TV show based on this process of acquiring the contents of abandoned storage lockers.)
This raises an interesting question: why bother stealing stuff when it is basically worthless? Smash-and-grab burglars are only stealing electronics (and jewelry if it is laying around in plain sight). Nothing else is worth stealing. Bicycle thieves abound, of course, but they're picky as well: a rusty made-in-China bike with a cheap (and easily snipped) cable lock will be left untouched; only the expensive bikes will be ripped off.
As I keep saying: what's scarce is not stuff, it's cash and reliable income streams. People are trying to convert stuff into cash, but it's tough because there is a surplus of stuff.
No wonder organizations that promote giving stuff away such as Freesharing.org are so popular. People are giving up trying to get any cash at all for old TVs, etc.; they are delighted if someone hauls it away for free.
Is anyone else sick of the "buying experience"? No wonder online buying has become so ubiquitous--the experience of shopping to acquire stuff is a form of torture, at least to some of us. Getting there is a nightmare (unless I can bike to the store), parking is a hassle, clerks generally don't know much, and the selection is often limited or skewed to the high end. The "fun" is in leaving empty-handed.
I suppose other people can't wait to get a new mobile phone; I live in dread that my old "dumb" phone will expire and force me into buying another one. Ditto for everything else we own.
There is so much stuff floating around America that we end up with stuff we didn't buy or even ask for--old laptops, bicycles (abandoned on our property, left by neighbors moving away, left to us by elderly neighbors who passed on, etc.) and clothing, to mention but a few of of the things that we have "inherited."
I make a point to be a "good citizen" by taking outdated printers, modems and other electronics to the recycling yard; others aren't so civic-minded, as proven by the piles of high-tech detritus that litter street corners and dumpsites around the nation.
When the university students leave town in May, dumpster after dumpster is filled with broken Ikea furniture and old mattresses, many of recent vintage. It isn't worth hauling any of it home. They will buy more future-landfill at Ikea when they settle down somewhere else.
My new mantra is "please don't give us anything we won't consume in a few days." What with all the insecurity in the world, a lot of people have assembled stashes of precious metals. Quite frankly, I don't want physical wealth I have to store, manage, protect, etc. I am not at all sure I want any "wealth" at all other than the "wealth" of productive land, a functioning infrastructure / civil society, and the "wealth" of freedom of movement and choice.
I just want to get rid of stuff, not acquire more. I welcome the digital age because "entertainment" no longer requires physical collections. I have already accepted that most digital stuff will be lost with time, just like physical stuff. Who wants to lug around 50 years of digital files? Yes, it might fit on a small drive, but who will sort through it all or even look at it/listen to it?
The clutter of all this stuff, physical and digital, clouds the mind and spirit. I think it was Sartre who noted that our possessions own us, not the other way around. I am tired of being possessed by possessions, of any kind or nature. I would be delighted if the can of WD-40 in the toolshed lasts the rest of my life. If it doesn't, then I will replace it, grudgingly.
More than likely, I will find an almost-full can in somebody's trash, along with everything else anyone could possibly want. The only thing missing from sorting through all that's been abandoned is the drug-like "hit" of the purchase. Sadly for a consumerist society, some of us are immune to that potent drug.
Many others will suffer consumerist withdrawals as the cash and credit needed to complete the purchase become increasingly scarce.
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It's all crap.....
can I still sell my VHS movies?
The other thing is that in America "stuff" is constantly moved around, which takes a good chunk of time, effort, and money.
Rental properties should be furnished by default! Not the other way around.
But then again what can you do when you have to escape yet another failed neighborhood.
The author doesn't include Air Jordans, right?
Bro must have da-shoes!!!
They are actually an investment relatively speaking
Excellent post, Mr. Smith. I've been saying more or less this to my friends and colleagues in the upper-crust town of Crapville Newton, MA for two or three years now. Why the fuck do you want even one new Lexus, let alone two or three? Who needs a big-ass house with a pool? A TV in every room? Puh-leeze. It's all useless shit, driven by the fear of death amd the black void (hat tip to the sentiment from that old poster displayed (not by me) in my dorm in freshman year, "Whoever dies with the most stuff wins." Stupid then, stupid now.
I am moving across the Pacific soon,
It has taken a year to sell off all of my "assets" and every single one out the door has made me feel better.
All that craps really is a lead weight.
I think "buying stuff" is a very different thing than "buying quality stuff that you actually will use repeatedly and/or need."
So I don't do the former and sometimes do the latter.
To Charles: you can find quality used dumb phones in good shape on ebay for a few bucks, if your one ever expires.
Only might need to buy a new battery for it.
My Nokia cell phone that I've had just quit working as new Iphones and other phones become available.
It is a conspiracy. I'm going to look at the thrift store for a replacement.
We don't need anymore freakin stuff. Tell China to send its Chinese junk somewhere else. And take the Apple headquarters and ship it overseas. I'm tired of it.
Yes, this site has gone considerably down hill since the day I happily discovered it (thank you, Finviz.com). Now the commenters are all straight off Yahoo News. No substinative discussion, the articles are all so cushy. It probably generates more add revenue, but come on, where are the articles indicting specific public officials? Too much blather. I want to see un-doctored pictures of Draghi and Merkel and Geithner tag teaming Bernanke (or is it all of them tag teaming Merkel?). TD must have been "contacted" by the Adjustment Bureau or something because nothing he publishes has teeth anymore...
Kinda suspicious that it seemigly started going downhill just 31 weeks ago... right around the time you joined.
Smells funny, ya know?
'Wealth of Freedom'
What, pray tell, the fuck is that???
A timely article I might say. I live in an area with many college students and professionals that live here temporarily. I just had a yard sale. I sold stuff I pulled out of the nieghborhood trash. Made $300.
I also used to pick up residential garbage for a living. I can't even tell you how much unused never open items I've thrown away. One time it was a $600 brand new snow blower. It wasn't self propelled so the guy threw it out and bought a new one . He ALMOST used it once.
America is the land of the hungry ghosts.
Ten years ago I sold my business, got divorced, and left it all behind. I moved to Hawaii with 8 boxes of stuff. What a relief! Ten years on I'm married again, and stuff is everywhere. What happened?
The biggest problem is that today with the Landfills to the brim that it costs more to GET RID of your STUFF than it did to BUY IT.
And then there is "stuff" that should never be just "stuff".
Browse http://www.petfinder.com/index.html, there are over 100,000 dogs listed at any given time by rescue organizations. Old dogs, every breed, dogs abandoned for one reason or another, some reasons not so good.
Some people only want new.
But the old ones. They are so grateful for a little kindness.
I recently purchased aleather wallet from corter leather for $200. Before, i would purchase cheap china wallets every year. But i paid a bit more for a horween cordovan wallet that looks better each day. Is it better to pay for it in the long run or have one good that will probably outlast you? Same goes for companies like Makr, tanner goods, etc.
Companies like that make me believe in the words "Made in the US"
I realize that this is very simplistic but sometimes I have this thought, this fantasy really, that all imported goods, manufactured in China, have been cancelled. We have to make our own stuff. Think of the Renaissance that may take place in North America. Craftsmen dusting off their father's and grandfather's tools, factories reborn from trendy loft condos spawned from once abandoned factories. Machinery and sewing machines humming again. People with more work than they know what to do with. Labor by sweat of the brow and lunchpails and thermoses in vogue again. Good workers in demand enticed by good wages. A blossoming in the present and a future with unlimited potential. Made in America. Yes, I know I'm dreaming. I know it's not that simple. Call centres and plastic Made In China McShit is a nightmare. We sold our soul.