The preface
It is not easy to admit to your own fallibility and become the object of resentment. Anyone ever coloured themselves a fool? Broadcaster, writer and Guardian columnist Adrian Chiles has! He, therefore, allows himself to criticise people’s consumerism. A penny for your thoughts ! I don’t know why , but his words “Our ridiculous addiction to acquiring more possessions is stuffing up the planet,…” brought back my memories of the moment when I was on a plane in 2018. I remember them announcing ‘We landed at MAN International, please don’t forget your belongings.’ Belongings! What a magical word! Belongings is the word that tells you about possession, such a notion that gives you a sense of wellbeing.
Masochism
Materialism tempts us to acquire more and more possessions. I was searching the Internet to find someone like-minded, until I came across a year-old article by Adrian Chiles about the stuff. I’d immediately thought he was my soulmate of the month. What hooked me instantly was the headline of the article ‘We need to stop buying stuff – and I know just the people to persuade us’.
Of course I was curious about who makes me suffer from stuffing up my house. For example, dozens of pairs of glasses I have yet to try on.
The Nature’s Answer.
Adrian Chiles opens his article with an anecdote-like story about his friend, an avid supporter of green theories, who went to an expert in woodland conservation to get advice on what type of wood he should build a new kitchen with but received just a backhander. The suggestion was: ‘Ask yourself if you really need a new kitchen’. The broadcaster laments a fact that ‘point taken, but not much acted upon’. The article seems to express the honest author’s disgust towards his own inability to stop buying useless stuff, having already stored a good 70% of it, including books, clothes, and kitchen utensils that previously were deemed felt important. He makes a sarcastic statement that he will not take anything to his grave. So what’s the point of buying more and more? To do harm to the environment? Even leaving the stuff to his children won’t do any good to them for the stuff otiosity.
The serious Accusation
Adrian Chiles goes off into severe criticism about advertisers whose ads and commercials are ubiquitous, pushy and talentless. Being a broadcaster he knows what pseudo art advertisers produce. In parallel, he addresses the pandemic times which by fact didn’t kill the buyer’s appetite, but intensified it instead. Chiles mentions delivery services available at any time the customers needed, and, surprisingly, the anxiety about inability to get rid of the old stuff for the fact of closed charities and dumps, which definitely prevented buyers from expanding the space for new things in their homes.
After All
The famous broadcaster uses a very accessible to everyone’s understanding style of communicating with his readers. He appears to wear his heart on his sleeves so emotional and open he is in his revelations, which leaves the taste of being prior to his private life and personal experiences. I totally agree with his calls. People buy loads of things, often needless, senseless or even useless? I've always thought the answer is plain to see. If you can control your outgoings, it implies that you are not an addict. I must confess to being sometimes a window-shopper because I do the shopping religiously and get a buzz out of it. But if you fail to do the shopping up brown and cannot suppress your unbridled enthusiasm for stuffing up your home, you must stop your money leaks. Consumerism, greedy big eyes and an itching palm make people think up suitable excuses for having a new buy and cluttering up free space in their houses. Gradually, this takes a form of addiction in a way when even with the expert handling you cannot get out of the woods with little to no issue. You'll need more space for stuff, more and more money to buy more furniture to store the stuff, a bigger flat or house. You'll worship the stuff and work for it. It will definitely send you into tiswas. As for Adrian Chiles, he makes an essential note. He says that we pay people for storing our stuff as storage companies spring up here and there because of the demand on them, after all.
Recommendations
Stuffing up his house with the stuff seems to be the despair of Ardrian Chiles. At the end of his analysis he comes up with an utopian idea of creating an anti-ad advertising campaign with the meme that would read ‘Stop Buying Stuff’. Alas, this seams not to happen. Still, as an old adage goes ‘a penny saved is a penny earned ', we'd better put some money aside. I will recommend the article by Adrian Chiles as an unalloyed, emotionally outpouring but extremely convincing suggestion to follow.
Erene,
2022, November 15th
Thank you for stopping by. Subscribe to my channel. It's free. Stay tuned