Material World

Several years ago when the kids were small, I gave them a book for Christmas titled Material World in which the photographer Peter Menzel includes photographs of families around the world. Each country is represented by a family. In the first photo, a two-page spread, the family is photographed outside with all their material possessions spread around them. A key to the photo spread describes each item and numbers the possessions. Subsequent photos illustrate family members at play or at work, with interior shots of the family's home or views of the city or countryside where the family lives. Accompanying text by Charles Mann describes the lives of the family members in context of the society in which they live, along with statistics on each country.

In unpacking boxes in the study today, I came across Material World and was reminded very forcefully of the unnecessary stuff we own, especially in comparison with many families around the world. For instance, the Regzen family of Mongolia live in a ger, a tent-like home designed to be portable. The ger is only 200-square feet, and six family members live there. The Regzens own few possessions, but what they have looks well-maintained and cherished.

I noticed that the Regzen family owns one photograph. Now, we are weighed down with photographs spanning several generations, including deguerrotypes of people we don't even know; few people in Tom's family labeled photographs. We've filled Mary Greene's steamer trunk full of photographs and old letters, I've devoted bookshelves to photographs in albums dated to the early 1900s, we have boxes of photographs we've never organized, and we have multiple copies of many photographs. The Armstrong family (Baker White Armstrong, Sr., Tom's great-grandfather) particularly liked to sit for photographs; we've got professional photos of all four children (born in the 1890s and early 1900s) at almost every age.

At what point will our descendants decide to quit packing all this dead weight? I can't bring myself to get rid of much of the stuff.

Except books--I'm now going through our books. We have limited shelf space, and I'm determined to keep only enough books that will fit on these shelves. We shall see.

The Regzen family of Mongolia told the authors of Material World that they hoped for a permanent house in the future. They wanted to give up their ger for a "house for all seasons made of wood and cement with a corrugated roof." As I pare down our belongings to fit in this 1300-square foot home, I'm longing for more portable stuff, with less weight and less responsibility to the past.

In his introductory notes to Material World, Charles Mann writes that "[u]ntil recently, humanity could always escape from itself, packing up the kids and going to the world's empty places. Now those places are filling up, and we have no choice but to confront ourselves. . . . "

Today I'm confronting myself and several generations of pack rats in the boxes stacked in our study.