Das Stuff

OUR houses are just a pile of stuff with a roof over it. That's why we build them: to keep our stuff. Sometimes we have to move to a bigger house because we need more room for our stuff. Even at work, everybody's got a little place for their stuff. I can see it on your table — memorabilia, photos, phones, laptop, iPad, a half-eaten apple and, boredom. You are not yourself without your stuff. 

Just look around when you are travelling on a bus, train or in an airplane, to see family or friends, and, get...more stuff. It's a frenzied land grab for the overhead bins to put our stuff in. These are, however, the little piles. We left most of it at the house which we had to lock up. We wouldn't want some bad guy to pay a little visit and take some of our stuff! 

 It's strange that they always take the good stuff. They never bother with the stuff we have been saving for years. Like the treadmill that is gathering rust due to non-use. Occasionally, we make attempts at getting rid of some of the old stuff to make room for newer stuff. But the idea does not intrigue the spouse. "How can we throw away our own stuff?"

That's right. At the end of the day, we are, after all, known by the stuff we keep.  

When we go on vacation, we have to take some of our stuff with us. That's a smaller version of our houses in two big suitcases and a carry-on luggage. As soon as we get down to the hotel room, we open the suitcases and lay out all our stuff. And just when we start feeling at home because we have at least some of our stuff with us, an old friend, who now lives there, calls and says,  "Why don't you come over and spend a couple of days with us?" 

Now we have to pack even a smaller version of our stuff. We left the main stuff back home. We have several bags full of our stuff in the hotel room. And now, we carry some of it—just enough for a couple of days—to the friend's house. The supply chain is getting longer and harder to maintain. 

But when we get there, we never quite feel at home. Wonder why? None of the stuff we see there is ours. It's the friend's stuff all over the place! The friend is kind enough to give us a room to sleep in. But right next to the bed there's a dresser with their garbage on it. 

Have you noticed that other people's stuff is garbage and our garbage is stuff? 

This time we've only got the wallet, nail clippers, medicine, two books, toothpaste, toothbrush, shaving accessories, cologne, laptop, cell phone, chargers, clothes and sandals. We put everything up. It takes about an hour and a half, but we finally feel okay after a while.  That's when the friend says, "I think tomorrow in the morning we'll go over to the other side of the town, go fishing with a friend of mine and maybe stay over." Oh, no! What do we do now? More packing follows. 

I think we get the idea.  

Some of us simply buy too much stuff.  For instance, the amount of money Americans spend shopping on a Black Friday alone is more than the GDP of many countries.  I understand when we buy stuff other people can have jobs, that's how we keep the economy running etc. 

But the problem is some people can't even afford the basic stuff. Perhaps that's one of the "root causes" why so many migrants from poor countries end up dead in the unforgiving seas trying to get to greener pastures. I am sure the poor Bangladeshis found in the Thai mass graves did not have much stuff under their roofs.   

We are also too attached to our stuff. But it is interesting to watch how an earthquake can change all that.  When we felt the tremors from the earthquakes in Nepal, wherever we were, almost all of us ran for the ground, an open space. 

What stuff did we grab then? 

The writer is an engineer-turned-journalist.