A Comment on Material Consumption

Everyone has so much stuff.

I am blown away by it all. Every time I enter someone’s home. The amount of clothes, furniture, dishes, glassware, stationary, art, greenery, drapery, tools, toys, and collections. Piles of paper spilling over each other. The electronics! Appliances, devices, consoles, and ‘smart’ tech adorning surfaces. Boxes hidden away in corners or stashed atop shelves unseen. Things on the walls, ground, running along baseboards or dangling from cords. Objects slowly shifting around, following seasonal motions akin to planetary retrogrades. Their whirring, ticking, clicking, rattling, and cuckooing punctuating the enclosed din. A cozy clamor to which most are conditioned.

Stuff stuffing abodes, each a menagerie inviting a sift-through by Walter Benjamin wannabes. For this onlooker, genuinely mystifying stuff.

Let me clarify. We are speaking here of material possessions. All of us inhale different forms of cultural output. We frequent theaters, concert venues, museums, cultural sites, and share our love of art in public spaces. At home, we engage with films, shows, interactive media, etc. Some of the latter overlap with objects that must be owned. Fine; games are a collective tie. It is the rest of it – those bobbleheads in mint condition – that I cannot fathom. I often wonder about each item’s use-over-time-ratio. How many months go by between its uses? How long did it take to become ignored once its novelty wore off? How many pieces of crap have been left in that drawer untouched for years? Of course, most never track their consumption. And for those who would argue for the deep cultural attachments to objects, commentary here concerns our proclivity for excess.

I admit, if the average consumer had my spending habits, the entire economy may collapse. Four years after relocating and this apartment is fairly empty. I purchased the essential furniture in my first week in Prince George and have not had any reason to buy more since. I refresh my wardrobe once every four or five years. I do not buy any decorative paraphernalia. Important paperwork is kept until it is no longer required and disposed of like all other items that have served their temporary utility. The only material goods that I obtain and consume on a regular cycle are groceries. (It even takes me two months to run through half a tank of gas in my vehicle. Unplanned money-saving that is tied to other principles carried regarding limiting my environmental footprint.)

It was never my intention to be a minimalist. It just never made any sense to fill spaces for the sake of it.

Two important caveats to include here. The first is something I have hinted at before – the desire to keep life light and mobile, given a heavy travel schedule along with its symptoms:

“Aside from the occasional fatigue, there are other signs that follow a person around, betraying the fact that their closet may be a suitcase. The wrinkled clothing, consistently folded or rolled into tiny spaces. I hardly have a nice shirt that can keep its shape. The finite, rotating outfits, cycled through in practiced combinations. The travel-sized essentials scattered about in easily accessible pockets. The darkened skin under the eyes, a dead giveaway of any unstable timetable. The flexibility in schedule as one is able to self-propel or be dragged to different places with extremely short notice. The lack of anxiety around uprooting everything as what is important is kept close.”

Perhaps a primary reason for my apartment resembling expanded luggage; the ease of movement and mitigated responsibility. Less stress is incurred the less you leave behind.

The second caveat: I do not share my life with anyone. Not having a partner or family makes the decision-making tree a lot simpler. And my fulfillment is not tied to increasing ownership with increasing means.

A little window into living in a place with reasonable rent: my recurring expenses average under $2,000 each month. Rent, groceries, utilities, social outings, vehicle costs, insurance, and more. All of it kept relatively low thanks to the stated caveats, living in Northern B.C, and exercising what I believe to be rational sensibilities. When I add in the one-off expenses that come once or twice a year (i.e. vacations, large random purchases, etc.), that average bumps up to around $2,500. A number that has stayed stable for the past seven years. (I was fortunate to pay off student loan debts early on in my career, the only primary debt I have carried as I do not have a mortgage. I acknowledge this is a big barrier to saving for many.)

Maybe that is why the stuff-hogging does not click for me. I spend and own very little, holding it all without considering meaning beyond basic function. People can be precious about their possessions. Sometimes overly so. Heirlooms and trinkets forgivable to a point.

Or maybe I am overthinking it. Most people grow up and live in family settings. Kids tend to need a lot of effects to divert their attention until they reach a certain age. By then, habits become ingrained. People exchange gifts, accumulate clothing and accessories, cycle through all sorts of short-lived hobbies, and follow consumption trends. It is easy to buy the world when everyone around you is doing the same.

Cast your eyes in the vicinity. Is there anything you use sparingly, or have stopped using completely, that you may never have needed in the first place? Why is it still there? Is the clutter comforting?

Frivolity surrounding ownership may be the norm in human behavior. After all, we know that people’s attraction to the novel is sometimes to the detriment of their interest. But we are living in a capitalist world filled with waste where things will only get more expensive as systems concentrate wealth among fewer and fewer. Our material consumption overdrive is worth a modicum of personal reflection. It could prompt a collective reckoning. Small changes amongst a great number can impart significant market and policy impacts. (Case in point: the current Canadian boycott of U.S. products.)

Everyone carries so much more than they must. I just do not get it.