Maybe because I’ve never had trash pickup since setting out on my own, grew up in the country with burning barrels relatively poor, are kind of a dirty hillbilly and a hoarder of sorts, I really despise stuff.

I get the fact that humans need some stuff to survive. You obviously need food, water, clothing and shelter. That’s a given and that involves consuming some stuff. Other stuff like a truck to get to the mountains, a camper to camp in, a mountain bike to ride trail and get from place to place makes life better. I like my big jacked up truck, I like having a basic smartphone, my camper shell with the lights for wilderness camping.

That said the problem with stuff is it breaks and wears out. Often soon after you purchase it. And it’s not just an issue with buying cheap disposable stuff at Walmart like the marketers often claim to be. Everything seems to break and get used up quicker than you would hope and expect. You buy stuff, you should be planning it’s disposal too. Much of that stuff – things they call durable goods but really ain’t – don’t burn very well either so it means trips to the dump.

I don’t know the solution. Not getting rid of things just means you end up with a lot of broken clutter that still needs disposal. Things get stuffed in the crawl space or the corner and are forgotten. Bonfires are great – heck Thoreau was talking about community bonfires in the 1800s – but even they can’t fix what seems like the inevitable flow of broken crap in our lives. I try to avoid buying stuff but it seems to just creep into our lives.