intellectual properties

my story with stuff

a friend just sent this SFGate article about a small urban farmer in oakland, which is interesting if you’re into this little subculture movement. how is it different than being a small rural farmer? not much, it turns out.

but the one sentence that really caught my eye was this:

I never learned how to take care of things because I’m used to them disappearing. The material world escapes me.

i’m going to ramble here for a minute.

this is something i have only recently recognized about myself - that my disinterest and disregard for material objects and that i don’t know how to fix things, or that i don’t care if they break, or if they disappear (non-attachment to objects) maybe stems from growing up poor. growing up, everything we had was 2nd hand, you drove it into the ground, and when it broke, you just found another one, either through the salvation army, the dump, or other poor friends. at some point fixing whatever broke usually cost more than it was worth, and you could easily just find another used one for cheaper than it would be to fix your old one due to the sheer abundance of consumer goods in the world. that included cars, washers, clothes, toys, everything. another interesting thing i recently realized is that this culture of trading used goods for other used goods existed very much where i grew up, and i remember my dad making many deals. you need a car? here, take mine, and give me your dryer, or help me build this thing. here in the city this is a new trend - clothing swaps, book swaps, etc, and something that people think is sort of novel. look how resourceful we are, buying used and trading things! in the country - that’s how you stay alive.

it is interesting to me thinking about this in that there seems to be a mirror image in terms of how classes treat material goods. generally (forgive the huge over-generalizations here) as above, poorer people seem to give up on objects easily (see: all the random household objects strewn about my neighborhood) and just find a way to “make do” or replace them with some other used object, either via trade or re-sale, rather than invest in fixing them. rich people also give up on objects easily and just replace them with the next new, shinier version, often before the old one is really broken. but middle class people - they seem to be the ones who care about objects, know how to fix them, take great care in maintaining them. they know how to fix bikes and cars and do home improvements. they keep clothing for decades. their objects have just enough value to make them worth caring for, and they aren’t rich enough to just replace them if they break.

i know i have started to think a lot more about how i use something, where it’s coming from, and where it’s going, and while i know that part of this has to do with learning about environmental impacts (The Story of Stuff), i also wonder if it has to do with becoming a member of the middle class, and maybe this has had more of an impact on my treatment of objects than i realize. living with someone who grew up more middle class than i did, and who definitely has the maintenance/fix it mentality has probably also changed this, especially since i think it drives him nuts that i don’t know how to fix ANYTHING, and that while i default to buying something used, knowing it’s not perfect and that it might not last too long, he would rather invest and buy something new and plan to have and maintain it for years and years. we’ve had this diversion more than once, with me always stating that i don’t WANT to have and maintain anything for years and years, that everything is for temporary use, and him not wanting to deal with fixing 2nd hand goods. the above quote touched something that left me feeling that the psychologies behind this are more complicated than they seem.

so, this meandering thoughtpath is leading me to wonder if the current loss of the middle-class - the rich getting rich and the poor getting poorer - will also lead to a discernable change in the lifecycle of material objects, resulting in a more direct transfusion of goods from the rich to the poor and then to the landfill, with little maintenance in between. will we end up with even more overflowing landfills as the gap between classes widens? or will all people eventually take up the middle-class practice of maintenance out of necessity, economically and environmentally?

i’m sure there’s some historical precedent for this (war and depression-era cycles of material goods), but manufacturing and culture have changed so much since the last time we really faced these issues, i’m not sure it can be paralleled. i see images of huge landfills in southeast asia, i see shoppers still swarming in and out of Wal-Marts across america, i see children obsessed with their TV and toys, and i wonder how far it’s all gone, and where it will circle back to.

back in the moment, i’m pondering all of this as i face a huge messy loft filled with way too much stuff that has accumulated and needs to be cleaned, sorted, and organized before guests arrive tomorrow, and some days, really: i’d love to just give it all away.