Stuffed

I have been thinking a lot recently about stuff - like the actual stuff we all acquire as we meander through life: clothes, shoes, papers, athletic gear, the list goes on. This all started when I was in Kenya, suddenly aware of my backpack, which in and of itself, contained more things than some of the people we interviewed had in their whole house. That was when I started wondering how necessary all of our stuff is.

Now, as I clean out my desk of three and a half years, I am recycling, giving away, or straight up trashing a lot of this... and once again wondering, is this all necessary? And where did it all come from?

Which took me on a Googling frenzy. Naturally.

Now let's be clear: I enjoy a new notebook or pair of boots just as much as the next person, but this video makes me think about purchases differently. The woman who made it drops ten years of research knowledge in a completely understandable and interesting way. Like everyone, she has a clear political view but regardless of whether or not you agree, she has compelling facts to support her arguments which have likely shaped her view.

Anyway, the sneakiest part of the whole system is what is termed "planned obsolescence" and "perceived obsolescence." First, planned obsolescence: There are actually algorithms within every company calculating the compromise between how quickly they need their product to break and how long they need their product to last both so that we all will need to buy another and keep their company profitable and that we actually will trust the product enough to buy it a second time. Ahhh! That is crazy! Perceived obsolescence is a fancy term for being out of style and feeling pressured by media/peers to consume a newer version of whatever it is you have, since it is obvious that your _____ is old, even if it still works perfectly fine.

Both of these terms could be part of the reason that only 1% of all the things we buy are still in use six months later. This percentage is certainly skewed by a lot of the things we buy being consumables (food, beverages, etc) which are not meant to last that long, but it gives you an idea of how fleeting our desires for the latest gadgets and gizmos are.

Recycling certainly helps all of this consumption by reducing waste into landfills and pressure to harvest more natural resources, BUT for every single barrel of waste saved (and instead recycled), it took seventy (yes, 7-0) barrels of waste to generate that single barrel of material you are recycling... so it would be better if it were not generated in the first place. Like, say, 70 times better.

Finally, compared to similarly developed Western European countries, we work the most and shop the most. Our top two leisure activities are shopping and watching TV. That sounds pretty dull compared to the laundry list of things we all could be doing, which could be contributing to the decreasing levels of happiness we see in the USA since the 1950s, despite our ever increasing appetites for consumption of more and more goods.

Interestingly (and thankfully), the video points out that there are a lot of different points at which we can change the system, since it hasn't always been this way. In the meantime, this is not to say that we shouldn't have things or buy things we need or enjoy what we have... but remember:

Joy is not in things, it is in us. ~RW