The empire of things

The title is stolen, or at least borrowed, but the issue is nevertheless real and important. As I look around my home I find that I have accumulated far too much stuff. There are of course things worth owning and that is not limited to purely necessary items: there are things we enjoy and like to own. But far too often there are things where we have long since forgotten why we got them in the first place. There are also things that do fill a specific purpose but are of low quality and that thus will need regular replacement - low quality being a special bane of our time. All of this strikes me as more and more of a problem.

In the end the way out of this is simple: buy what you need, buy things where using them gives you enjoyment end don’t bother with the rest. It‘s curious how hard this can be.

The empire of things is a book by Frank Trentmann and have to admit to not having read it, I will remedy this.