Your stuff owns you

“In just 60 years, capitalism has nearly broken planet earth.”

For those that find life to be too hard, then the modern world usually prescribes lobotomising psychoactive drugs. And, if we’re honest, the rest of us just go shopping.

George Carlin famously joked, “Everyone’s gotta have a place for their stuff. That’s all your house is, a place to keep your collection of stuff. A box with a lid on it so you can secure your stuff while you go out and get more stuff. Sometimes you’ve got a move and get a bigger house because you got too much stuff.

Sometimes, you go on holiday, and you have to take some of your stuff, not all your stuff, just the things you like. You’re just making a smaller, more condensed version of all your stuff.

Two weeks in paradise and you have to take two big bags of your stuff, so when you finally get to your hotel room, you breathe a sigh of relief that both your stuff has safely made it across the ocean.

Then an old friend on the next island invites you to spend a couple of nights with him, so now you have to pack an even smaller overnight bag because you can’t take all your holiday stuff. Now you have got your stuff spread all over the world.

So just as you’re finally relaxed, your friend says were invited to a party overnight, and now your supply lines are getting thinner, now you only take your essentials. Keys, wallet, comb, lighter, contraceptives, whips, chains, dildos and a good book.”

And, don’t get him started on shopping malls!

We learn from an early age that we are a failure if we don’t ascertain a certain level of stuff. But it doesn’t end there, because if your thing is of a particular type, then your stuff is not worth anything.

Stuff created for its usefulness in our fight for survival. It was only in the 1950s that stuff began to design for social durability. Now trillions go into persuading us to buy things just for the sake of keeping up with the neighbours.

The worlds global economic model is now reliant on us buying crap for no other reason but to preen our feathers of self-esteem. And, if you can’t get the stuff you want, then the doctor has a pill for that.

Each day there are people in conference rooms, brainstorming ideas to get you to believe that their product is not only necessary but worth paying a premium for and worth maxing out your credit card for, just “because you’re worth it.”

Now the economies of the world are teetering on collapse, they still deny planetary destruction, ever-increasing the rate of extinction, loss and not forgetting the economic ruin of your children’s future – was it worth it?

Can you admit to yourself that you have been played like a violin by the establishment and corporations in collusion? The rise of self-storage warehouses is a real testament to our weakness, our stupidity and our vulnerability to social pressure to comply.

There is a sense of ‘awakening’ creeping through our society today and how you’re considered nothing more than a ‘cash cow’ herded into the nearest city centre.

The ‘we’ve painted ourselves into a corner’ moment comes when you realise that the iron grip of security and surveillance now unleashed over the last few years is because they know we are waking up and the herd is becoming wiser.

There is a reason the amount of advertising has doubled on your TV over the last few years. There is a reason your new smart telly wants to listen for keywords in your private conversations.

They are using your gadgets against you, to use technology to enhance their surveillance and keep us shopping – even at home. Keep calm and continue shopping! China needs to keep its workforce working, the Saudi’s need to keep its oil revenues rolling and as continually shown – your government is working for the farmers and not the cattle.

And if that wasn’t bad enough, now products are designed to break after a set time. Planned obsolescence is a big problem in the modern world and this too is designed to keep you buying.

In today’s world, it’s about preparing and buying the ‘right kind of stuff’ for an uncertain future.

So next time you ‘have to have’, just remember who will own who!

Dalai Lama says “It is often difficult to judge how our actions and their impact on the environment are likely to affect others. What is clear is that we are the only species with the power to destroy the earth. Birds and insects have no such power, nor does any other mammal. And yet if we can destroy the earth, we also can protect it. I believe we have an urgent responsibility to do so!”

Couldn’t have put it better myself.

How solar panels buck the trend?

The amount of ‘time in your life’ that you dedicate to working to obtain more stuff proves that your stuff owns you. But, very occasionally there comes along something that bucks the trend.

20th-century advancements like the washing machine, the fridge and the flushing toilet taken for granted, but in the 21st-century, solar panels will be that defining technology, your grandchildren won’t appreciate, but couldn’t live without too.

Back in the earlier days, it was a typical question for people to ask me if solar panels were worth it. Nobody ever asks me that question anymore. Sign of the times – maybe?

Simple common sense dictates that the current glut of ‘cheap oil’ will be just another dip on a graph and only artificially contrived to tackle Russia’s energy dominance over Europe and get us shopping again.

Solar panels won’t need replacing in just three years like your washing machine. With an average lifespan of thirty-plus years, you will become less dependent on the system. Buy technology to ‘buck the trend’ and give your grandchildren a fighting chance in a world that ‘sold them down the toxic river’.


Stuart Lovatt 2015-02-18
Founder of Power My Home.