Stuff. And stuff.
I watched students move out of campus this month, and I’m preparing to move across campus and then across the state this summer. (Also planning some travels and adventures in the mean time, so I will flex my Traveling Light skills).
I’ve made some observations about stuff, meaning possessions and things people own, acquire, use, or don’t use/need.
I DON’T put people in boxes and I don’t think this list is exhaustive, or even mutually exclusive. But I’ve moved in and out of dorms/apartments/houses/countries/states/counties enough times to see some patterns emerge. I think there are different ways to own and deal with stuff.
The Miser really digs her* stuff. She has a considerable chunk of disposable income, and it doesn’t matter if The Miser earns her money or if it’s given to her by a parent or doting uncle. The Miser has money, and she shops constantly. She has closets full of clothes she won’t wear, appliances that have never been plugged in, gadgets she doesn’t need to survive, and so on. And yet, she doesn’t like sharing or loaning out these items. It appears to hurt her to give them away if, say, she is absolutely out of storage or car space and boxes to mail them to their next destination. (Side note: Money is no object when it comes down to keeping this stuff. She’s willing to make multiple trips across state lines in a car and pay for the gas, or pay the overweight fees on luggage. Even if in the end it works out to paying for each item twice, or threefold. She just can’t lost her stuff.) Anyway, if she HAS to give this stuff to St. Vinny’s or a friend, she reminisces about the day she bought that piece of stuff, worries she’ll need it in an emergency, and tells the person she’s donating it to just how much it cost.
The Miser exasperates me the most, but I’ve known her and lived with her many a time.
A sub-genre here is the Miser-Kleptomaniac. She loves other people’s stuff, too, and tries to con it off of them. Sometimes, she steals it on move-out day because she knows she’ll get away with it. I can name two MKs off the top of my head who’ve taken my stuff, but I didn’t care at the time and I don’t care now. But Christ, I find it strange (and memorable, obviously).
The Heir/ess has money, shops often, but doesn’t care about the stuff she buys. She breaks expensive or quality stuff, loses it, or gives it to a friend on a whim. But then she’ll go out shopping immediately to replace it. She may make lofty claims like, “See, money doesn’t really matter,” but that is in more of a literal sense. She doesn’t know what she spends; has never budgeted; has never lacked money to judge when/why it matters. The classic Heir/ess is the person who puts an almost-new, working TVs in a dumpster on move-out day because she already has two at her next destination.
The Hoarder lacks money, or went through a rough patch with no money, but compensates for it in sheer stuff-quantity. It is delicious to her to see $5 translated into many, many items or one large item. Even if she doesn’t have the space to store it and it becomes lost in a pile of clutter. Or, even if it’s shoddy merchandise and DON’T EVEN GET ME STARTED on sweatshops. The Hoarder likes having stuff around her, because it makes her less lonely. Like I said, it can be shitty, useless stuff that gathers dust, and she won’t go out of her way to keep or maintain it. She’ll give a garbage bag to Goodwill on move-out day with a shrug. But she is emotionally dependent on the hoard she will soon start to build again. See: High School Laura.
The Buddhist isn’t necessarily a follower of the Buddha, but is absolutely unattached to stuff. The Buddhist is usually a vagabond who doesn’t live in one place for very long-perhaps the duration of one semester, perhaps less. She’ll work on a riverboat on the Mississippi over the summer and literally live out of a backpack. She’ll give you the shirt off her back without a care. The downside is, she doesn’t take restrictive conventions like signed leases very seriously, so you could easily lose your Buddhist room mate to a trail that needs to be built in the Pacific Northwest and be stuck with the full amount to pay. But she never has ill intentions, she’s just not attached to stuff or creature comforts like, oh I dunno, a bed and a shower. She can live on microwave rice if she has to.
*Obvi, the stuff-owners are not all women! So often shopping and stuff-ownership is gendered, but I’m not about to open that can of worms right now. I was just trying to use pronouns well. The collective “they,” while more inclusive, is too often grammar-murder. Blargh.
Also, like I said before, not everyone HAS to be one of these. There are ways to interact with stuff and money in a healthy way, to simply use it as a means to an end (that end = a wholesome, happy and comfortable life) and not the end in itself. I hope I’m in that place, though I’m a recovering Hoarder with Buddhist tendencies.
But man o man, stuff can warp us. I’m so wary of it.
I’ve made some observations about stuff, meaning possessions and things people own, acquire, use, or don’t use/need.
I DON’T put people in boxes and I don’t think this list is exhaustive, or even mutually exclusive. But I’ve moved in and out of dorms/apartments/houses/countries/states/counties enough times to see some patterns emerge. I think there are different ways to own and deal with stuff.
The Miser really digs her* stuff. She has a considerable chunk of disposable income, and it doesn’t matter if The Miser earns her money or if it’s given to her by a parent or doting uncle. The Miser has money, and she shops constantly. She has closets full of clothes she won’t wear, appliances that have never been plugged in, gadgets she doesn’t need to survive, and so on. And yet, she doesn’t like sharing or loaning out these items. It appears to hurt her to give them away if, say, she is absolutely out of storage or car space and boxes to mail them to their next destination. (Side note: Money is no object when it comes down to keeping this stuff. She’s willing to make multiple trips across state lines in a car and pay for the gas, or pay the overweight fees on luggage. Even if in the end it works out to paying for each item twice, or threefold. She just can’t lost her stuff.) Anyway, if she HAS to give this stuff to St. Vinny’s or a friend, she reminisces about the day she bought that piece of stuff, worries she’ll need it in an emergency, and tells the person she’s donating it to just how much it cost.
The Miser exasperates me the most, but I’ve known her and lived with her many a time.
A sub-genre here is the Miser-Kleptomaniac. She loves other people’s stuff, too, and tries to con it off of them. Sometimes, she steals it on move-out day because she knows she’ll get away with it. I can name two MKs off the top of my head who’ve taken my stuff, but I didn’t care at the time and I don’t care now. But Christ, I find it strange (and memorable, obviously).
The Heir/ess has money, shops often, but doesn’t care about the stuff she buys. She breaks expensive or quality stuff, loses it, or gives it to a friend on a whim. But then she’ll go out shopping immediately to replace it. She may make lofty claims like, “See, money doesn’t really matter,” but that is in more of a literal sense. She doesn’t know what she spends; has never budgeted; has never lacked money to judge when/why it matters. The classic Heir/ess is the person who puts an almost-new, working TVs in a dumpster on move-out day because she already has two at her next destination.
The Hoarder lacks money, or went through a rough patch with no money, but compensates for it in sheer stuff-quantity. It is delicious to her to see $5 translated into many, many items or one large item. Even if she doesn’t have the space to store it and it becomes lost in a pile of clutter. Or, even if it’s shoddy merchandise and DON’T EVEN GET ME STARTED on sweatshops. The Hoarder likes having stuff around her, because it makes her less lonely. Like I said, it can be shitty, useless stuff that gathers dust, and she won’t go out of her way to keep or maintain it. She’ll give a garbage bag to Goodwill on move-out day with a shrug. But she is emotionally dependent on the hoard she will soon start to build again. See: High School Laura.
The Buddhist isn’t necessarily a follower of the Buddha, but is absolutely unattached to stuff. The Buddhist is usually a vagabond who doesn’t live in one place for very long-perhaps the duration of one semester, perhaps less. She’ll work on a riverboat on the Mississippi over the summer and literally live out of a backpack. She’ll give you the shirt off her back without a care. The downside is, she doesn’t take restrictive conventions like signed leases very seriously, so you could easily lose your Buddhist room mate to a trail that needs to be built in the Pacific Northwest and be stuck with the full amount to pay. But she never has ill intentions, she’s just not attached to stuff or creature comforts like, oh I dunno, a bed and a shower. She can live on microwave rice if she has to.
*Obvi, the stuff-owners are not all women! So often shopping and stuff-ownership is gendered, but I’m not about to open that can of worms right now. I was just trying to use pronouns well. The collective “they,” while more inclusive, is too often grammar-murder. Blargh.
Also, like I said before, not everyone HAS to be one of these. There are ways to interact with stuff and money in a healthy way, to simply use it as a means to an end (that end = a wholesome, happy and comfortable life) and not the end in itself. I hope I’m in that place, though I’m a recovering Hoarder with Buddhist tendencies.
But man o man, stuff can warp us. I’m so wary of it.