Material Possessions Discussion

This is an interesting question to me because as I have moved overseas twice, it entailed shipping all of my things at great expense three times, so it was encumbent upon me to really, really prune my possessions to those that I just absolutely thought I needed to have.

When I moved over to England the first time, the job paid a certain amount to ship things, but would not give us the money to buy things like furniture and household items and things are much more expensive to buy here than in the US, so it made sense to ship as much as we could.

But when we moved back to the US, the job there gave us a moving allowance and my sister-in-law said, 'Why didn't you just ditch all your stuff there and use the allowance to buy new stuff here?'

I looked at her in horror. I said, 'Some of that stuff is precious to me - I wouldn't take any amount of money to leave it behind and buy new stuff.'

I'm very sentimental. I love things like the piano my mother gave to me because it's the piano I grew up having lessons on. I could have easily sold it, not paid what it cost to ship it and bought a keyboard to play, thus saving and probably even making a considerable amount of money - but I could never do that. I found myself shipping things like the Pearl Buck books my dad gave me when I was ten or eleven years old. I've read all of them and I could have left them packed away in my mom's attic - but I wanted them with me to remind me of my dad. Every time I pass my bookcase in the hallway and glance at them, I think of him.
Same with the vase my brother sent me flowers in for my birthday twenty years ago- it was the last birthday I had before he died. It broke, but I glued it back together and it sits on a table in the hallway next to the bookcase with the books from my dad

Tv's and **** - I could care less about- but my blue glass collection that my mom compiled for me through the years because she knows I love blue glass - if I lost that- I'd cry real tears for a very long time.
And still - they are all just THINGS- innit?
Weird.

i just had a grandparent pass and talk about a house full of a lifetime of junk. all quickly ownerless. what a strange feeling it is to be around 'things' that dont possess an owner. and to think the amount of time it took for all of those things to come together in the possession of one owner. And for what?

Material things exist to make our lives easier and to entertain us. I do agree with you that people obsess far too much over material things though. ridiculous things like how some women obsess over shoes and some men obsess over cars for example. You can even put the worshipping celebrities in the same light. It's meaningless and pointless. People just need something to care about to give meaning to their lives. I think some people settle for materialistic things because to look for a more profound interest would require more in depth self-examination since our interests are what give us a sense of meaning and purpose. I think people are afraid to do this, so they indulge in superficiality.