I initiated this post back on December 13, 2023. Almost exactly half a year ago. Today I pick up where I left off. (Let’s hope that it’s improved with time like an oh-so-fine bottle of wine!?) Time to look at the tyranny of stuff…
By way of backstory, here’s what I jotted down back in December.
Our friend, Jennifer Isaacson, reached out with a book review this morning that triggered memories of meeting Seamus Heaney in 1986 or 1987 while I was a freshman (or sophomore?) in high school. Listening to him read, heck, even just listening to him speak, was mesmerizing. What a word wizard. What an accent. What a cadence.
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If you’re unfamiliar with Heaney, I encourage you to change that. You can thank me later.
But eulogizing and recommending the poet isn’t my mission.
Instead, a couple of excerpts from the article (and the spot-on perfect title!) provide the seed for today’s photo essay.
Let’s start with this.
What is the opposite of poetry? What slows the spark and puts sludge in the veins? What deadens the language? What rears up before you with livid and stupefying power—in the middle of the night, in the middle of the day—to make you feel like you’ll never write a good line again?
Stuff.
Not physical stuff, but mental stuff. You know: things you should have taken care of. The unanswered email. The unpaid bill. The unvisited dentist. The undischarged obligation. The unfinished job. The terrible ballast of adulthood.
— James Parker (Source: “The Tyranny of Stuff”, The Atlantic)
Couldn’t have put it better.
This has been my challenge over the last year and a half, to burn the fat out of my brain so that I can focus. So that I can find what I’m searching for. So that I can create what I’m trying to invent!
Back to the article.
I’m up to my neck in deferred things and pressing things, and always the real thing gets shelved.
— Ted Hughes (Source: “The Tyranny of Stuff”, The Atlantic)
Thank you, Ted Hughes. Another bullseye.
When others say it better, step aside. The tyranny of stuff is what I wish I’d come up with myself. Resonates big time. And in so many ways!
Which brings me to the photographs in today’s post.
Physical stuff (not mental stuff.) A series of snapshots taken upstairs in the carriage barn.
So. Much. Stuff. The detritus of homeownership. Physical stuff.
A visually effective stand-in for all the mental stuff. Stupefying sludge.
But not for long.
I’m declaring an end to the tyranny of stuff!
What do you think?