Category:Athena Scalzi    

31 Comments on “Something Beyond Materialism”

1. I love this. I have three stuffies that I made about 20 years ago that I have to sleep with every night. Two brain eating amoebas, one pink and one green, and Monster. Monster is a black amorphous stuffie that fits just perfectly in my arms when I sleep. He’s not important just as a stuffie. He also happens to be the same size as my beloved soul kittie Shinji, a black and white boy that snuggled with me every night. I lost him almost ten years ago. Monster helped me by snuggling with me every night after I lost Shinji. I also have my dad’s wool blanket, my lap quilt that I made and my mom’s cast iron bed. I’ve got a ton of other stuffies and blankets that I’ve bought and made that I love, but those are top of the list. I also have dishes that have been with me my entire life. Corelle’s Butterfly Gold in my case.

2. Sensitivity can be a strength. Make it yours!

3. When I was in the hospital a while ago, I watched some UK TV show where people brought cherished heirlooms to be evaluated by experts. The most moving story was about a German-made toy soldier from the early 20th century.

   The current owner’s grandfather had rescued an injured German soldier and taken the fellow to an aid station.

   After the war a package came from Germany with a letter from the mother of that injured soldier. It said that her son had died from his injuries, and in gratitude for trying to save him she was sending her son’s rescuer his favorite childhood toy.

4. I needed to read this essay today. I have been reading and collecting The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction since the very early 1970s. I first become a subscriber to F&SF in 1974 soon after my 18th birthday. I am still a subscriber although I am not certain if another issue will be published. My collection had grown to approximately 500 issues. In the process of downsizing to move to a much smaller space, I decided to pair down my entire book collection including my beloved F&SF. I went through them all very carefully and put aside about 50 special issues to keep. I thought about selling the rest as individual issues or as a collection, but in the end I decided to donate them to the Cincinnati Public Library for them to resell. I know they will do their best to find new homes for my magazines and make money for the Library. Packing my collection in boxes, putting them in the rear of our car, and dropping them off at the CPL warehouse was extremely difficult and emotional. I did shed some tears.

   Tears shed over material things is a healthy way to express appreciation, and loss.

   😊☮️❤️ Robert

5. Let me tell you about Blanky, my childhood blanket. I’m 47, married, job, homeowner, blah blah and you can take Blanky away when you pry them from my cold dead hands. I’ll be forever grateful to my genius mother for cutting Blanky in half when we went on an overseas trip when I was a kid because that half of Blanky was lost, but I still have the other half.
   I also have the quilt my grandma made me when I was a kid and almost every card sent to me. I love them!

6. i relate to this deeply – as long as i can remember, the concept of something being mine, be it gifted, bought, or however else it found its way into the conglomerate of objects in that circle, was weirdly meaningful to me.

   nowadays, i believe a big part of it is that for some items, i tend to really deep-dive into comparisons before committing to a choice. that, then, imbues this choice with extra meaning. (and harbours potential for a very special kind of betrayal when such an item falls short of expectations.) other items, i just adore and get a kick out of having around me. it’s not so much that i’d call myself a book collector, for example, but i do own a lot of them, i need to have spent a little time comparing editions, my threshold for buying more is very low, and my threshold of price where i need to think before committing this much money is a bit too high. and, of course, some things acquired their meaning because they’ve filled their role for a long time, and the thought of having to replace them stings, not unlike more easily justifiable kinds of loss.

   in the end, i think there’s something about ‘our things’ as externalisations of our self. frugal in some ways, careless in others, maximalist in yet others, and so on. which items we spent a lot of care picking and which we kept around merely because it wouldn’t even be worth it to replace them (and having to get used to new ones). which choices tell of who we were back then, and which are self-affirmations of who we are now…

   and if a natural desaster (or hard drive failure) suddenly took part of these externalisations away, of course it’d be painful. how could it not? and replacing everything would not be the same. how could it?

7. You’ve got nothing to be ashamed of. What you describe is the best of human nature. There’s a lot of human nature that is awful, but our tendency to feel wildly overgeneralized empathy? That’s one of our few redeeming traits.

   I get the same way about good books. And I’m pretty generous in my definition of “good.” I’m a math professor, and I’m probably above the 99th percentile for rational thinking. But when it comes to books, I’m not even a little bit rational. My house is full of overstuffed bookshelves. Three layers deep in most places, and usually with extras horizontally on top of the triple layers. Almost none of them will ever get read again. Not by me, and probably not by anyone. But the thought of throwing them away turns my stomach. Like, actual nausea.

   I probably should start a library. For some reason, the idea of sending my books out into the world for someone else to read isn’t bad. Rather like a child growing up and starting their own life.

   But I know what would happen. If I started to sort my books into groups and categories for public perusal, I would get derailed and start reading some of them again. And I would never get the job done.

8. Oddly, my wife asked me this very question just this week. “Is there anything physical (besides her) you want to hold on to and never get rid of?”

   I have two stuffed doll Opus’s (Opi?) from Bloom County, one with a tie and the other wrapped in a shower towel. That guy speaks to my whimsy and I love him.

   Also, I only keep books in the bookcase that I know I will read over and over. That library is something I never want to get rid of. It seems my meaningful life is a fictional one, and that doesn’t seem weird at all. (Yes, an old battered paperback copy of Old Man’s War is there. Will have to replace it one day.)

   Thanks for this post today.

9. I totally understand where you are coming from. I kind of envy you having access to the things you have had all your life and in the same place where you have been. Having moved so often and changing countries, I am far from where I grew up, but I still have my grandmothers crocheted blanket that covered the altar when I married my wife (my grandmother had passed away, and I wanted her to be there in spirit), the pizza stone that my friend and I made out of clay in his studio is now on its fifth oven. This is all investment in memories that matter, things that make you who you are.

10. I’m with you on the plates. I still have the plate I grew up using as a child, along with the spoon and fork. I still use them! Sentimental hoarding does have its uses. When my closest friends from college were moving out of state, I bought their stoneware set. It was Karen’s childhood set from her parents. I used them for years, but less so as my wife got a new set she liked better. Then their youngest daughter came to school here, and needed household stuff. So voila, I was able to gift her her mother’s childhood stoneware (except for one saucer I kept. It was the perfect size with a rim to hold the cheese grater).

11. “…but I guess it’s better than apathy.” – you better believe it, sister! Right there with you on that!

12. Those plates are lovely!
    I think my strongest emotions are connected to music: I have CDs of folkdance music from the decades when I danced with my parents; sheet music of gorgeous works that I’ve sung with various choruses over the years; actual vinyl discs of ABBA songs because hey, they are FUN and I was a teen when they hit big here in the US. I always have music playing in my head when nothing else is going on in there.
    Is there such a thing as feeling “too much” or “too little”? Our brains are all wired differently; treasure the one you’ve got :)

13. Sentimental? Yes. Materialistic? I don’t think so. You love these things because they are a part of your life and your memories, not because they are rare or expensive. The memories wrapped around the things matter the most—which may be a comfort later in life. Me? I have objects I cherish in the same way, that I will never willingly part with—and I’m a LOT older than you, with correspondingly more things to cherish!

14. When I was a young kid, the family’s regular tableware was a multi-color set of… Melmac, I think? I always wanted to eat off the pink plate. I considered it not just my favorite, but as MY plate, and would raise a fuss if it wasn’t the plate set out for me at the dinner table.

    Which eventually led to friction with parents, because pink was for girls, not for boys, and they worried their youngest kid might grow up not just non-macho, but a sissy. Growing up in the 1950s was a real hoot, lemme tell you.

    If I remember correctly, the pink plate eventually got separated from the rest of the set and stored away in a high cupboard.

15. I used to have strong sentimental attachments to objects – I remember having a Battle Royal with my mother when I was about 10 years old, because I wanted to keep my beloved blue go-go boots even though they were tattered and worn, while she considered them trash. I won that one by liberating the boots from the trash can and hiding them in the top of my closet, then smuggling them off to college with me 8 years later. I never actually wore them again, mind you, but by golly, I was NOT entertaining any suggestion of throwing them away.

    But now, nearly six decades later, I find that inanimate objects have far less power to hold me in thrall. I think part of the change is due to the fact that my sibling and I had to deal with what our Depression-era parents left behind when they died; neither of them EVER threw ANYTHING away, and it literally took us years to wade through and dispose of all the detritus they had accumulated. I’m not as good about purging unneeded stuff as I’d like to be (inertia is very much a thing for me) but I am definitely a whole lot more ruthless about getting rid of stuff when I wade through a closet or cabinet than I was when I was your age.

16. Interesting post. I don’t know that materialistic is really the word for what you are describing though. It has a pretty negative connotation that goes way beyond an emotional attachment to objects that have meaning for you. Most of us have objects that ground us and maintain our memories and human connections. I’m pretty sure a materialistic person would have a need for fancier tableware to show off their taste or their success even if they kept the black dishes out of sentiment.

    I’m of your grandparent’s generation and I’ve come out the other side of materialism like an earwig noshing its way through a street sleeper’s brain. There’s nothing weird about seeking solace in the physical world. Just don’t become so attached to things that they tie you down or eventually bury you.

    Oh yeah, my weakness is books. I could lose it all in a fire, but I’d mourn my books.

17. There are a few books that I’ve kept with me throughout the years. I don’t cry over them, as in the physical book itself, but I do still cry when I read the content.

18. After my beloved grandpa died, my patents lived in his house for a few months to get repairs done and to go through all of the belongings that were to be given to his descendants. By the time I got to his house for his wake, all of my 20 aunts and uncles and 20 cousins (plus some in-laws) had picked over the leftover objects that were spread out on his pool table. When everyone had gone home I took a look at what was left and pick out two things for myself: his coffee cup and his high school class ring. I wore his class ring all throughout college until I saved up enough money to buy myself a class ring.
    Thanks for making me think about this. I think I will add his coffee cup to my to my “In Case of Evacuation” list, and I’ll start wearing his ring again.

19. When I was in first grade, some 70 years ago (yes, I’m old) I “made” a vase for my mother. That is, I got a jar and painted it dark green with silver lines through it. My mother kept it. When she died a decade or so ago and we were emptying out the stuff in her house that my father would never need, I found my vase in the cupboard and took it home with me across country. It has pride of place in my kitchen cupboard now, the oldest thing I own.

    I have gotten rid of a lot of stuff in moves and clear outs, but that isn’t going anywhere.

20. My wife and I have a collection of stuffed animals we call Pupniks (a combination of puppy and Sputnik) from the first years after we first got married. They live all over the house now, with the first ones right behind the bed.

    Sometimes stuff isn’t just stuff. The things that fill your house are often so much more.

21. @ Colonel Snuggledorf
    Yep. Nothing will make you a minimalist so much as having to clear out someone else’s stuff….

    When a friend’s stepfather died about 10 years ago I helped clean out the house. Me and my friend went there every Saturday, filled up the F150 full of stuff for goodwill or landfill, and hauled it off. Every Saturday. For 3 months.

    I do not want to do that to anyone I know.

22. May 8th of last year a tornado felled a tree on our house. I came damned close to dying. We spent 45 minutes trying to find my cat. We did. We got out of there mostly with each other and our furbabies. (And, thankfully, our medication. Nobody likes me unmedicated.)
    We lost a lot. Books, an irreplaceable antique tea set, artwork, my daughter’s baby photo album (she wasn’t living with us). Other photo albums. 99% of my clothing. My husband risked his life to grab my childhood copy of the book my father gave me. I lost my signed copies of your Dad’s books (along with so many others).
    It put my materialism into perspective real fast.
    Enjoy your things but don’t let them control you.

23. I cry very easily. No shame on that.

    I have a teddy bear that is over 40 years old. His name is Arthur. I sleep with him every night.

    I also have a blanket that I’ve had since before I can remember. It’s safely tucked away.

    Hold tight to that which brings you joy.

24. There’s nothing wrong with an attachment to treasured things; they enrich our lives. I have more than my share, probably; certainly more than I’ll enumerate here.

    But ultimately, what I’ve come to treasure most are moments both present and past. Relationships, places, experiences, and feelings. Some are ongoing, some only temporary, but the memories of cherished ones (and yes, sometimes triggered and reinforced by objects) will remain with me and make me happy for the rest of my life. In the long run, it’s those that matter to me…and they can’t be lost, broken…or require storage space.

25. I eat biscuits in bed. I’ve been doing this for years and years and years. I have two every night. They’re nearly always digestive biscuits.

26. Thanks for being vulnerable about this. It’s one of the best things you’ve written.

27. Just remind yourself that taking this connection to objects to the ultimate conclusion leads to one place…hoarding.

    From a perspective of nearly 70 years what I see isn’t so much materialism, as youthful fear of change. Materialism is going out and buying a new food processor when you already have three.

    I’ve found that some of the young have a greater fear of change than us olds because they haven’t survived as much of it. You want things to remain as they have been, comforting and comfortable, filled with love and sufficient of everything to fulfill your needs. The symbols of that comfort and security are important to you emotionally as representations of your preferred state of being.

    There is nothing wrong with this, until it leads to an accumulation of stuff that interferes with the current progress of your life. When you can’t find things any more, or buy more of item A because all the other A’s you possess are buried by items B-Z in plentitude.

    Look up Swedish Death Cleaning. That’s what my husband & I are doing after living in our house for 29 years. We’ve donated and trashed thousands of items, thousands of pounds of unnecessary stuff, so that our heirs will not have to. We are going to be sorting and distributing family photos and items to other family members who have more posterity than we ever will.

    This type of radical decluttering can also be very emotionally freeing earlier in life as well. Not to get rid of every vestige of sentimental items, but to ensure your environment is serene and organized. It really helps mental health to get out from under redundant crap, while honoring and displaying those truly meaningful items that give you joy every time you see them.

    Don’t fear change, change is life. Learning to navigate it is a skill that will stand you in good stead. The best change is the one you initiate yourself.

28. Today so many of our precious items are in files on a computer. Jokes we made up. Ideas for creative projects. Recipes. A bit of writing… more if I’d been capturing comments I wrote on the web. For most folks (us, not so much): photos.

    Two words (or is it 4?): offsite backup.

    Not that we aren’t also, after 48 years of marriage, semi-hoarders.

29. @Lym watching the show Swedish Death Cleaning made me realise that the house I was living in wasn’t mine. Sure I’d moved into it and removed the godawful vertical blind and added a library, but I hadn’t made it my home.
    Now it looks like MY place.

30. You haven’t lost it. It’s okay to be sentimental about things. I think we hold onto things even more when life is hard and ugliness is everywhere.

    Decades ago my father took my older brother and me to the state fair. My brother tried to win a stuffed tiger for me by throwing a large hoop over a stand. He was 5; I was 3. The hoop was bigger than he was and even though he tried very hard he lost. He felt miserable and tried to not cry while repeatedly patting my shoulder. I watched our Dad said something to the carny, a bit of money was stealthily handed over and the carny handed the tiger to my brother, loudly congratulating him on his win. My brother beamed! Then he gave me the tiger and a big hug. Nine years later our father died from brain cancer at age 34. Three decades after that my brother ended his own life. I still have that tiger, although, I long ago stopped using it as a pillow. She is lovingly wrapped in tissue paper and kept in a Hermes box bought just for that purpose. My will states that my tiger is to be cremated with my remains when that time comes.
    Certain objects hold not only memories but love – a little boy’s love for his sister and our father’s love for us both.

31. Stuff I collect gets lost.

    When I was a boy, uptight and repressed, I was given for Christmas an sf novel by James White, “The Secret Visitors.” Mere space opera, I guess. I hope I still have the book, but some boxes were lost.

    A doctor is keeping a stakeout on a mystery patient. When a young lady visits the patient he says, “I know that girl!” Not that he has ever been within thirty feet of her, but he had seen her at a concert, and had been very struck by her being very emotional, even weeping, far more than he (or I) would ever be.

    (Turns out she was raised off world, and was secretly visiting) Nothing wrong with emotions, as the doctor ends up falling in love with her, and she with him.

    I have yet to enjoy a concert like her, unless you count feeling the grand safe emotions of people around me. Not the same.

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