After reading Daniel Miller's book "The Comfort of Things", I decided to read his other book "Stuff", which looks at consumerism within the human race, and takes us on a journey of our own possessions and why we feel the need to own material items. The book is a study based on more than thirty years of research conducted in London and India (amongst other places), and gives us a new way to look at our items and how they have began to define us as people.
A lot of the time, people hoard and collect items because they cannot let go. I feel that everyone becomes attach to a certain item, or collection of items, at one point in their lives, that we do not want to get rid of. Daniel Miller says "Stuff is ubiquitous, and problematic…" (page 5), we keep things just because they have an attachment to a particular occasion or memory, rather than keeping them because we need them or they will enhance our lives.
Daniel Miller also comments on the fact owning thing sometimes becomes a matter of life and death, as materialism and owning objects defines us a human beings and sets us apart from each other. Owning a collection of objects, no matter how expensive or inexpensive they are, sets up apart from other people who do not have that collection. It is a talking point, something to be proud of.
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