Saturday Stuff-It Chronicles: Historical "Stuff"

Please join me every Saturday for discussions on "stuff". “When I look down, I miss all the good stuff; when I look up, I just trip over things"  Ani Difranco Last week was my first day of volunteering at the local Archives.  Like a nervous child on the first day of school I wondered anxiously what it would be like and what would be expected of me.  After a very informative tour I was given time to familiarize myself with some of the archive's historical content.  Meandering through the new Jean Weber Reading Room (so named after an outlandishly outspoken woman who wholeheartedly worked to preserve memories of yesteryear) I began browsing local family and women's institute histories. I noticed a pattern. When describing their lives, what do you think people included in personally-written "mini biographies"?  The size of their home?  The number of cattle on their farm?  The immensity of good china in their cabinets or handmade dresses in their armoires? The pattern seemed to be that predominantly their focus was on: family roots (their parents and possibly geographical location of their homestead), the number of children they had, their source of employment, and the organizations for which they volunteered.  (The huge Wellington North 'encyclopedia' listed religion and political bent as well.) It had nothing to do with how much they had of what sort of thing... So why is our contemporary culture obsessed with "stuff"?  If, when we pen what is important to us, and what makes up our "life", we rarely mention items of a more physical nature, why then do we feel we need to fill our lives with it NOW? If our memories include occasions of laughter, or endearing (or not-so-endearing: like the ones of my grandma's persistent open-mouthed chewing habit that we laugh about now) moments that are more about PEOPLE then why do we strive to buy the latest gadgets and choke up our homes with substance-less substances?  Items that mean we have to work much harder to achieve, to pay for, and to clean so that we don't actually have any time left for people?? I may have been viewing less modern records but when we observe current obituaries I would hazard to guess the pattern remains similar... The Important "stuff" in our lives is very rarely "stuff". "The best things in life aren't things" reads a hand embroidered cloth framed in our home.  (Yes, I do indeed note the irony in the fact that quote is in itself a "thing"!) So, Stuff it!  Stuff the empty, meaningless stuff...and let's fill our lives with more meaningful, important moments with people.