The Embarrassment of Having Stuff

Once a peasant, always a peasant.

It's amazing how one can be sculpted by life into a certain mindset. We were nothing close to destitute while I was growing up, but, let's face it, my dad was a trumpet player/arranger/composer and my mom is a singer and worked as a hairdresser while I was growing up. We weren't exactly swimming in money. We ate. We got college paid for. We had a nice house. But, we never had lots of stuff. Family vacations were rare. That kind of thing.

But, we rarely had "extras."

Which is why I had this absurd feeling last night. Keep in mind: we are anything but rich, but, we're fortunate to be okay and maybe a little more financially flexible than my parents were.

I was fiddling around in my little music studio, arranging things. (Not literally "fiddling" and not musically arranging; like, just moving stuff around.) It is a studio that is funded, mostly, with the money I make as a musician. Once in a while, I cheat and throw in fifty bucks or even a hundred from the teaching income or from our collective money, but most of it, as a result of my silly personal code of not "stealing" money from the family for my own needs, is music equipment with music money.

In Defense of Having Stuff



Tolkien's Smaug

  Let me start by saying that I am a fan of the concept of living more simply and with "less" -- of placing peace of the mind above desires for material things that we perceive as "better" than what we already have or for life as we wish we could have it. But, I think we need to carefully keep perspective: possessions are not all bad.

Wanting things just to have them leads to both literal and philosophical clutter but material things can bring us happiness. We shouldn't let the very important and wise idea of not allowing possessions become an albatross around our necks turn into a fear of wanting and taking pleasure in the material things we love.