14 August 2008

Stuff

"Actually this is just a place for my stuff, ya know? That's all, a little place for my stuff. That's all I want, that's all you need in life, is a little place for your stuff, ya know? I can see it on your table, everybody's got a little place for their stuff. This is my stuff, that's your stuff, that'll be his stuff over there. That's all you need in life, a little place for your stuff. That's all your house is: a place to keep your stuff. If you didn't have so much stuff, you wouldn't need a house. You could just walk around all the time. A house is just a pile of stuff with a cover on it. You can see that when you're taking off in an airplane. You look down, you see everybody's got a little pile of stuff. All the little piles of stuff. And when you leave your house, you gotta lock it up. Wouldn't want somebody to come by and take some of your stuff. They always take the good stuff. They never bother with that crap you're saving. All they want is the shiny stuff. That's what your house is, a place to keep your stuff while you go out and get . . . more stuff! Sometimes you gotta move, gotta get a bigger house. Why? No room for your stuff anymore." - George Carlin

2 comments:

Carpe Diem said...

Last week's class was all half stats. I was so bored, I read the econ text all along. One of the passages fairly far up front said something like "human needs and wants are unlimited, and the only thing that constrains the economy is the actual amount of effort/time available for people to generate cash with which to buy what they want". It also said something like... "Obviously, it is much better to have more and more". And the reality of it is that all our utility functions are themselves shaped by conditioning. So we have conditioned ourselves over generations to want and need more and more, till we have everything, and have even stopped asking why. Stuff. Gosh... I am putting mine in storage, and will just walk around.

Unawoken said...

Paul Graham on clutter: http://www.paulgraham.com/stuff.html

The take of a Chinese American tween living in Los Angeles