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Thursday, April 22, 2010

Thoughs on "stuff"

Why is it that our mindset is based on the accumulation, personification and the inevitable sentimentality of stuff? I have been reading a Blog lately called "Wet Fly Dry", which is a really great attempt on the writers part to re-evaluate the need for stuff, and basically sells everything that won't fit into his truck and any unessential fishing gear, and is about to embark on a journey of a lifetime, one that is unencumbered by work, equity, furniture, object, real estate and the like. His words really allow one to process what it would actually be like to go through this purge because he is doing it...or rather I assume he is. I think about this idea of stuff more because I am a generator of it, and funny that this post is on Earth Day. I make things. I love to make things. I make pots, I make fishing paraphernalia, I have made two wonderful and amazing children (with the help of my wonderful and amazing wife) who hopefully will one day grow up and change the world. I love the idea of people living with and using things that I have made to effect their daily activities.
I think that the human people on some level, be it genetic/physiological, social, cultural or whatever, need stuff...and it's funny that that idea bothers me, because I am adding to the stuff. It's amazing how over the course of our lives we accumulate so much stuff. It's like the remnants of life's existences swept into the corners of our memories, all attached to some tangible thing. I am a month out from having to move a life's worth of stuff with my mother, all of which is so connected with her life, or more importantly her life with my Dad. These things are the embodiment of close to twenty four years of living in a house. But I guess the thing that I find so interesting is how the memory overpowers the object. They become one.
Hopefully I will be able to purge the unnecessary, hold on to the important, and find the things that need to remain on a lot of levels both mental and physical. I will never stop making and I embrace that. I am a crafts person, and the only way to be good at something is to do it, repeatedly, until it is right. And even then when it's perfect, I'll do it again. Happy Earth Day and hopefully everyone can find a way to simplify.

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