The Story of Stuff

I’ve been a bit spotty of late, but I just got back from a really great two-day conference for work on sustainability. I must admit that I’ve never been someone anyone would call eco-conscious. Sure I recycle and I’ve seen Al Gore’s power point, but I’ve never made demonstrable changes in my life. The past two days had their ups and downs, but the overall effect was profound. Not that I left all granola, in tears and vowing to make my condo carbon-neutral. But a lot of things clicked about my own views and thoughts on sustainability, and I left with a picture of the world that matches up with what I see everyday.

It links back to an episode I had a month or so back in San Francisco. When I told my friend over dinner that I wrote a personal finance blog, she looked a bit stumped and then ventured, “So you would write, say, ‘Oh man, I went to Starbucks today and had a latte and I really shouldn’t have.’ That kind of thing?” And while this is occasionally the scope of what I write about, I was deeply offended.

It hit that personal pride thing. My friend makes more money than I do. In college, this of course wasn’t the case, and we both came from the same middle class families. Her comment was an affront to my personal pride. She implied that I was miserly, watching my pennies, denying myself the latest trend in retail.

But the principles I espouse here are not just about reducing spending to be thrifty, but also about reducing the value you derive for yourself from buying stuff. To expound, stuff is just STUFF and I want to make sure that it never defines me. As nice as it is to have nice things, enjoy music and experiences that cost money, it is not me. Part of this new revelation came from seeing Annie Leonard’s Story of Stuff film. Here she investigates the consumptive patterns and rituals we observe America and the “work—watch—spend” cycle we get roped into. It’s true… as she says, the first thing President Bush told us to do after 9/11 wasn’t to grieve or hope or get involved, it was to BUY STUFF. He appeared in advertisements telling us to go back to our normal lives, go shopping, keep the economy afloat. No wonder all of our ego satisfaction comes from this same stuff.

The first reaction to watching the Story of stuff is to put a moratorium on all spending and to seek out sustainable everything, sustainable toothpaste and reading lamps and beach towels. But as Adam Werbach instructed us at the conference, it’s not about what you do or don’t do, but about how much, and to what degree you’re doing these things. In short, sustainability is about balance and it’s about being a perpetual student, learning where stuff comes from and how the choices you make influence the world. And that is the kind of non-granola vision that I can subscribe to. So I haven’t made any unattainable commitments; I’m just thinking about balance and how I can rethink my attachments to my STUFF. Believe me, I have them…