Why do people like stuff quite as much as they do? What about ‘things’ strikes a silvery-tinsel-spangled chord in our brittle and blasé 21st century hearts?
Most of us have been there. Coveted, lusted, longed, schemed, plotted — not in pursuit of an ideal or an idea, but in pursuit of something much baser than that — an object, a thing, a representation or an approximation of our desires.
Beyond the boring connotations of status and projections of self, what stuff does is erect fortresses — strong and fortified enough that we don’t have to see or consider the unseemly, ugly and difficult.
Stuff is the psychological ballast we buy, the defense we employ, the fun we have. Stuff can make the living of life a little pleasanter, easier, brighter. Ideas can sharpen edges, but stuff can soften them. Stuff is the tangible, corporeal proof of quality of life, in some ways of material progress and accomplishment.
The stuff of our lives isn’t something to wish away. It’s something to understand, appreciate and even savour if we are to build a better relationship with it.
(Photo by Franco Antonio Giovanella on Unsplash)