The joys of being a "stuff" person
As it turns out, being able to fit your whole life into a single suitcase is fairly miserable
For someone who hates moving as much as I do, I seem to do it an awful lot. In the last two and a half years, I’ve moved four times. In late 2020 I braved the unforgiving journey along the A40 to North London (with a brief stint in Shoreditch that bankrupted me and stole my sanity), then again to a different corner of North London in 2021, then in 2022 I moved country, and now in 2023 I’ve once again changed flats. It has been exhausting and entirely self inflicted.
I don’t think humans are particularly well equipped at changing their environments so frequently. For those who can pass between spaces/places and living arrangements without a panic-driven Ikea haul, either their brain chemistry has always been concocted in such a way - or, as in my case, they’ve had to beat their aversion to change into submission.
One of the main reasons for why moving tends to be so fucking dreadful is because you have to confront all the poor financial decisions you’ve made during your time in that particular home. For myself, this largely comes through the form of clothes I don’t need and never wear, one-off purchases that felt like a good idea at the time but now remain untouched (exercise equipment, a fan, expensive food processors etc) and a lot of foliage that refuse to stay alive. On my best of days, I am financially irresponsible. On my worst of days, my spending habits are quite simply destructive. If buying useless shit in the pursuit of dopamine was a sport, I’d give Phelps a run for his money.
My dependence on accruing new stuff is intricately linked with my emotional state. There was one evening a few months ago where I got home from a particularly tough day and proceeded to buy 100 quids worth of plants from the first website I found. I had convinced myself the reason I was unhappy was down to the lack of greenery in my living room. I was wrong. It wasn’t that (shocking), and a few months later, I was still unhappy, and had to move three boxes of half-dead plants from one flat to another.
The liberation that I imagine one might experience after relinquishing material possessions is quite seductive. Not quite seductive enough where I’d actually consider chucking out all my things, but it’s a nice thought. I remember years ago reading that Buddhist monks shave their heads as a symbolic rejection of unnecessary earthly possessions. Admittedly, I did go through a “maybe I should shave my head” phase for a few minutes back in the day, which I thankfully never caved into.
Mary “organise your cupboards and cure your depression!” Kondo capitalised on this seductiveness. The fact that she had children and then declared “fuck everything I said before, just live in chaos” is perhaps one of my favourite things that’s ever happened. There is something to be said about more stuff = more stress, but this past year I’ve lived with as few possessions I’ve ever had, and I fucking hated it.
The problem I’m facing is that I am inherently a stuff person, who is trying to live the lifestyle of a non-stuff person. I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about the stuff vs. non-stuff dichotomy, and there are some key questions I find myself coming back to: Does liking stuff make you materialistic, and therefor shallow? How important is it really, to one’s sense of self and happiness to put value in trinkets and art and nice crockery? Could I have a happier existence if I lived a life of minimalism? In trying to find the answers, here are some dimensions I consider:
I don’t possess anything once owned by my ancestors
Ok ancestors sounds dramatic. I mean grandparents/ great grandparents, even my parents really. I don’t mean that I’ve never nicked my Dad’s jumper, or repurposed some of my Mum’s bags. I mean the notion of family knick knacks, or hand me downs, hasn’t ever been something I’ve experienced. I don’t possess anything that ties me to the grandparents I never knew, and my parents weren’t able (or chose not) to keep anything from their younger years. For that reason, the idea of one day being able to give my future children, and even their children, boxes full of potentially useless stuff that I’ve cherished throughout my life, is quite touching.
I’m sentimental about everything and have a terrible fucking memory
Do you also have a box of memories from your adolescence? I have 5. Anything you can think of, I’ve probably kept it. Birthday cards, receipts from memorable outings, plane/concert tickets, weird looking stones, song lyrics I made up as an angsty teen, posters of musicians and actors I used to be obsessed with . Not only do I hold really strong attachments to each of these items, but I also have a very real fear that I will one day lose my memory. You always hear about sufferers of Alzheimer’s hearing music from their childhood and being transported back, so if anything, my hoarding is really just good planning incase I get dementia.
My stuff is an expression of my identity that for better or worse, I am stuck with
You can tell a lot about a person by the things they fill their home with. A peak into someone’s bedroom gives more insight into who they are than any Hinge profile ever could (trade marking this for a dating app).
It’s not only how a person organises their home, but how they dress it up. What art, books, photos, cushion choices have you made - why? I had someone visit me in my second-to-most-recent flat a month or so ago, who is still getting to know me. It was strange not having the usual markers of my identity littered around my home, to give that person small but significant insights into the things I care about and gravitate towards. I felt like I had to give a sort of disclaimer - “this flat isn’t representative of who I am! None of my stuff is here!”, I said.
When I moved country, I left nearly all of my things in London. Even after a year of absence, my books/art/photos/ceramics, all feel as entrenched into my being as my sense of humour or love/hatred of small plates restaurants does.
I admire those who roam the world with little to no belongings, perhaps even envy them a little. There is freedom in not having to worry about boxes of shite you could probably live without if you really had to. I just have to accept that I’ll never have the mechanics to operate like that, which I think I’m fine with
Anyway. Long live stuff.