Stuff is stuff.

(This is an unpublished essay written in December 2003 about the end of the year holiday season. It may be a bit on the "dark side" for some readers.)

‘Tis the season for… what? There are a lot of words that could fill in that blank… as for me, it is a season characterized by “stuff.” Stuff is such a great word for it can encompass so much. There are so many ways and contexts in which to use “stuff.” It is one of those wonderful words that serve when explicit descriptions fail me or are otherwise inappropriate. It can mean anything:

“I gotta get my stuff outta here.”
“Where you goin’ with that stuff.”
“Stuff happens.”
“Stuff it!” (as a verb)

Traditionally starting in December (and for some of us, starting anywhere between October and December), there is a lot of emphasis on obtaining stuff to give to other people. Personally, other than for young children in my family, I no longer obtain stuff to pass along to others who are also obtaining stuff to pass on to still more people. It is just stuff. Sometimes I wish that the great urban legend surrounding fruitcakes was really true: there were only so many fruitcakes made hundreds of years ago and they have been passed around, back and forth, during the intervening “holiday seasons.” Perhaps someday, an archeologist will find the cradle of fruitcakes and then we will know.

Think about how great it would be to know that the stuff you give and receive this year will be fruitcakes. In fact, you could make a pact with people on your stuff list to simply keep the fruitcake they were going to send you, and you will keep the one you were going to send them. This saves money and eases the burden on overworked postal systems. For the troops in Iraq, there could be an emergency airlift of fruitcakes into the no-longer-war-zone (although people are still being killed every day) since most of them probably did not leave home thinking that they should take their ancestral fruitcakes with them. Their loved ones will not have to send them fruitcakes if a reciprocal, non-exchange agreement as proposed above is in place and fully documented in triplicate by the appropriate military commands. This could also result in a resurgence of manufacturing fruitcakes if there is anyone alive who still knows how.

Now, lest those of you who do obtain stuff to pass on to others take umbrage at my gentle poking fun at stuff ritual, please know that I am not suggesting that you refrain from indulging in “stuffing” this season. My thoughts are only mine as they originated from an inner dialogue about stuff at this time of the year. I think that at some point, stuff took over the lead in the whole point of the celebration of this season which I believe is celebrated one way or another in most of the world. My thoughts and my emotions are really directed now, probably more than any other time of the year, to that rapidly growing passé and politically incorrect concept called peace. I am not a student of world religions, yet my scant knowledge of them and my intuition tells me that all of them espouse and support the notion of peace. What is peace?

I think that peace is not limited to simply restraining ourselves, individually or nationally, from bashing in someone’s head who does not agree with us. I think peace is an inner state in which we do not even want to bash in someone’s head even if it is good form at the time to do so. Peace is that point in which we begin to notice that others are mirrors of ourselves and start to pay attention to what it is that we see. Peace is a knowing that all can be well in the world. OK, I admit that it is unrealistic to expect a ground swell of peace to roll over the world as a result of this newsletter (or any pronouncement by anyone). Now, I think is the time to come back to stuff.

How did stuff take precedence over peace as the focus of the season? I think it is because that stuff is easier to focus on than peace.

“World peace, nice concept, but there is no way it is going to happen in my lifetime, so why be concerned with it? I’d rather stand in line for two hours to buy Ballerina Barbie or GI Joe Operation Iraqi Freedom. Shucks, I rather go to the antique store and stock up on a few more fruitcakes… and before I go shopping, I think I’ll have a few augmented eggnogs. Cheers!”

There is nothing "wrong" with stuff. We all need different kinds of stuff to survive, and perhaps to do a bit better than survive. I think we need peace too, desperately as a matter of fact. I am sick at heart over what is happening in so much of the world including my nation of birth, the USA. Sometimes the sheer magnitude of the pain and sorrow that we inflict on one another is so crushing that I cry. I know it is not a guy thing to do, but it happens. With all of the wealth and abundance of this wonderful Earth, why must people, especially children, die of starvation, mistreatment, and disease? I do not have a definitive answer other than I know the roots are fear and greed.

A few weeks ago, I decided that my writing would henceforth be emotionally honest and informing, not dictating. So, in that spirit, I leave you to ponder your “stuff” this season and its balance with spending time considering the possibility of peace and what that involves, personally, nationally, and as a species. It is an interesting subject for thought…