The Stuff Edition 
 
I think that… the planet’s biggest problem is the overabundance of crazed human consumers scurrying about and destroying the balance of nature with their insatiable need for stuff. 
 
War, corruption, power struggles, and the bulk of human bickering since the beginning of time — all have been over the obtaining and the maintaining of stuff.
 
I also think that… this coveting and hoarding of stuff, a singularly terrible and destructive trait owned exclusively by humans, will be the demise of us all.
 
Well, okay, squirrels, dogs, cats, mice, rats, badgers, crows, and probably a host of other creatures enjoy and occasionally sneak stuff, but it’s usually food stuff, which I classify as non-stuff stuff.
 
Humans, on the other hand, confiscate, plunder, connive, and start wars to get other countries’ stuff because they think that… it’s a convenient, justified way of getting some of the world’s best and most valuable stuff.
 
That’s right. And if you’re the winner of one of these entirely avoidable wars, you get the spoils, which is just another word for really big important stuff. Yes, the winner gets a whole country full of stuff, except usually they have so severely wrecked the loser country’s stuff that it isn’t even worth having anymore.
 
When will humans learn to leave each other’s stuff alone?
 
I also think that… on a small personal level, it is sometimes a game of getting bigger and better stuff in order to outdo the next guy — an endless, moronic, neurotic human pursuit of houses, cars, boats, jewels, planes, and pocketbooks. Yes, pocketbooks — $30,000 ones. These types of things I refer to as stupid stuff. The quest for stupid stuff is a clear reflection of one’s voracious greed and lack of common sense.
 
I once knew a decorator lady who knew lots of really rich people. She told me that people who have and want this kind of stupid stuff want to show the world how well they are doing. And not only that, they think that… only people as rich as they are can have this kind of fabulous stupid stuff. While this is just nonsense, it makes these really rich people happy and proud.
 
I think that… these people don’t realize that owning all this fabulous stupid stuff makes them look selfish and spectacularly foolish.
 
Personally, I’ve never had a lot of stuff. Stuff makes me nervous. It makes me nervous because, like most humans, I tend to get too attached to it. Then I spend hours of my life, which I can’t get back, worrying about losing it to banks, creditors, or, if it’s really, really good stuff, robbers and crooks.
 
I think that… spending your precious time being preoccupied with inanimate objects, which can’t give comforting hugs and words of wisdom when you really need it, is unhealthy and a waste of time.
 
Some politicians are good, but most are generally immoral stuff-crazy men and women who manipulate poor dumb fucks into voting for them in order to win elections and subsequently reward their corrupt, stupid-stuff-owning campaign donors by passing stuff-protecting laws across the land.
 
I think that… what greedy Wall Street hustlers and mega-church shysters have in common is their blind fixation with giant-stuff which moi, arbiter of stuff, designates as jumbo houses, planes, boats and ridiculously over- priced artwork. These giant-stuff collectors’ lives are devoted to getting it, then acquiring more and more of it.
 
I also think that… some Americans think immigrants are not coming here to work jobs they won’t do themselves, like picking apples or changing diapers in sanitariums. Instead, they think that… the immigrants are coming to get their useless personal stashes of shitty-plastic Walmart stuff.
 
Yes, a number of Americans are deluded into thinking their stuff is way better than, say, Mexico’s stuff, even though, in reality, Mexico has some of the most magnificent stuff in the world.
 
My dogs don’t need stuff. It might appear that they do, but that’s only me needing stuff for them. I want my four-legged girls to have lots of cool stuff, like glamorous beds, fancy collars, and adorable toys that I sometimes keep for myself because they’re too cute to be torn to bits.

Well, actually, Ruby, my puppy, adores stuff, especially the kind she isn’t supposed to have, like house plants (technically not stuff), shoes, books, and, last week, my wallet, which was full of important stuff like cash and credit cards, which she shredded overnight into messy piles on the kitchen floor. Yes, her favorite thing in life, at the moment, is chewing and shredding Mommy’s stuff.
 
Now that I’ve explained the source of man’s — meaning the planet’s – problem, what is the answer?  
 
I think that… first of all, a whole lot less stuff in the world would be in order, but I think that… Dalton’s theory would apply — stuff cannot be created nor destroyed.
 
Shit.
 
So maybe we could just shoot our unnecessary, polluting stuff to the moon or, better yet, send it all to Mars and make that billion-dollar trip to a dead planet worthwhile.
 
Seriously, though, I think that… each and every one of us can make our own small but significant dent in this ginormous problem by downsizing, admitting to, and managing our giant stupid stuff dependencies and addictions.
 
Let’s call this collective dent making, The Great Stuff-Downsizing Revolution!
 
Vive La Revolution!