Dylan John
Our Accumulated ‘stuff’ And Why We Never Let It Go
It seems like we manage to somehow collect many objects as we go through life. Some of them are valuable and should be kept while others might not be so valued or don’t even bring with them many good memories but we just can’t get rid of them, for some reason. Our accumulated ‘stuff’ and why we never let it go — such as that Yamaha acoustic guitar we spent money on long ago — can be fascinating to study.
That guitar is a good example of this phenomenon, by the way. Maybe we were convinced by some music store clerk that we were going to be a folk rock superstar or somebody like James Taylor, perhaps. And though we could never learn to make even the first chord in one of his songs, we still can’t bring ourselves to give it away or sit down and force ourselves to take a few music lessons.
Still, an acoustic guitar can be a cool thing to have laying around the house if only for the curiosity value, and it just may manage to be with us when we finally have to settle accounts for good. However, how many people are going around with one or two wet dry vacuums taking up space in a garage or basement? It’s fairly certain that somebody, somewhere has these items laying around.
Maybe the vacuum was going to be used to finally get a handle on the garage and the water leakage that sometimes resulted because we just never got around to applying new seals to the bottom of the garage door. At any rate, the days when we wanted to use such a powerful vacuum are probably now long gone and receding rapidly in the rearview mirror that we call our past life.
Giving people the benefit of the doubt is probably the best thing to do when it comes to their ‘stuff.’ Maybe these items bring back fond or pleasant memories of events gone by, though it would be hard to imagine why a busted tennis racket — which got that way deliberately — might bring back anything but the former anger that led to it getting busted. Or maybe we were imitating John McEnroe; who knows?
And when it comes to items like children’s furniture, why we might still be holding onto cherry baby furniture — which we bought when little Sarah was newly arrived but which hasn’t been used in 25 years — can be a real mystery. For sure, it would seem that baby furniture might better belong in a garage sale or in some other family’s home that could really use it.
In truth, the question ‘Are we ever able to let go of ‘stuff?’ will probably never be fully answered and is likely to remain a great mystery to many of us. Maybe getting rid of all of that junk is just too difficult or perhaps there’s so much nostalgia wrapped up in it that it’s impossible to let go. For sure, that stuff is likely to bring back memories even when we’re well into our Social Security years.
All Along the Watchtower, Dave Mason, Infinity Hall 3/7/10.MPG
