Or, how I learned to appreciate beauty without needing to possess it
A few years ago a friend discovered there were these estate sales run by a local company. They come in and liquidate the contents of your life for your surviving family. I think they take a percentage of the sales as payment. The really valuable stuff goes off to auction, but the regular stuff is just presented in an open house.
It’s quite an amazing experience. Obviously these things happen in well to do families, so you can walk out with treasures sometimes. All the antique dealers used to line up for these at dawn, hoping to score treasures at discount for their shops. That is, until the bottom fell out of antiques. Most dealers today are hawking the stuff onFacebook Marketplace and out of their basements. The kids have no interest in antiques.
So we started following this company. We’d get emails once or twice a month announcing a sale here or there, and we’d look over the offerings and sometimes make a Saturday morning outing of it. At the very least, we’d get to visit some amazing houses in neighbourhoods where I didn’t know anyone. I bought some great stuff. I don’t know why people pay top dollar for pressed saw dust and glue at IKEA when you can get solid mahogany chests of drawers for half the price now…
Thing is, after a while you start seeing through the magic spell things have cast over us.
I remember going to the house of a woman who’d been the matron of a family who’d made their fortune in the grocery business. EVERYTHING had a price tag on it. Including the half used roll of Saran Wrap and the baking implements (probably inherited from her own mother) which were bundled with elastic bands in a bin marked “make us an offer”.
Once we’re dead, the magic leaks out of all of our treasures. I remember growing up, my mom had inculcated in me admiration of the finer things in life. My dream was to possess Waterford crystal some day. But then I saw person after person’s treasures, lined up with cheap stickers and bargain prices… and it dawned on me.
It’s just stuff.
The value of our treasures is created by our own desire for them. That’s it. Even a Waterford crystal tumbler, is just a bloody glass. It doesn’t do anything any other glass can’t do.
Our treasures are not only just stuff. They’re also a burden. And they’re a source of suffering, because when you break your Waterford tumbler, you feel loss. If someone else breaks it you feel anger.
Over a fucking glass.
At that moment my lust for things just died. As I realized how heavy and cumbersome all this shit I was collecting was… and how little it really contributed to my life. It’s all just us trying to surround ourselves with proof of our identity through stuff. Look at me, I drink in Waterford crystal. I’m so fucking all of that. Check out my glasses.
When I exited my relationship last year… it was a bit tumultuous. I ended up having to leave right then. I had an hour to assemble my shit.
I took the art on the walls, and my clothes and toiletries. A few dishes, and tools. Everything else, thousands of dollars of stuff, I left. And have never looked back.
I rebuilt in a small apartment and my rule as I shopped Facebook Marketplace, was nothing I don’t NEED comes in. I rebuilt a comfortable nest out of other people’s cast offs. For $3000. My place is full of antiques and eclectic stuff from around the world that the people I got it from were just thrilled to get rid of.
But the second rule I made was to NOT get attached to ANY of it.
Things I owned were not going to own me again.
So one day I got home from work and this beautiful porcelain plant hanger had let go of the ceiling and lay in 50 pieces on my bathroom floor. At first I was angry. And caught myself. Then I started to feel sad. And caught myself. Finally… I got the dust pan. And scooped it all into the trash.
It’s NOT going to own me. It’s just a thing. Replaceable a hundred times over in every store in town. No, not as pretty. But so what? It’s just a plant hanger, I didn’t lose a part of myself, did I?
And so, things don’t preoccupy me like they did before. I don’t feel envy for other people’s material success anymore. Because it’s just STUFF.
And in death, all my treasures will reduce to their true material value… a Waterford tumbler, is really ONLY a glass.
My instructions after my death, are for things people have asked for to be given to them. After that, open the doors and give everything else away. Throw out what’s left or send it to charity.
It’s fine to appreciate beauty and to surround yourself with things that have meaning for you. But don’t get attached. They’re only treasures for you. After that, like your corpse, they reduce in value to the sum of their component parts.
And that’s just fine.
Luxury I have discovered, is not worrying about stuff that doesn’t worry about you.
