RW on What is ‘Stuff’

What is stuff? Stuff has become the plural filler word for property. The concept of stuff encompasses valuable and simultaneously unvaluable items. Stuff can be the padding within your four walls, those hardly thought about things that make the room feel less empty and more cozy. Cluttered; lined with a thin layer of dust, things you never reach for but have no heart to throw away: his letter, gran’s figurine, high school medals. Stuff is a container sometimes with no opening. Stuff can travel, gathering at the bottom of your purse and pockets, the familiar prize of a claw machine. Stuff is, nonsense gossip through word of mouth- things you would rather not get involved in, so beyond you it’s: just stuff.

So, if stuff is a term that assigns mere flippancy to objects or circumstances. Why can stuff mean much more? Value can explain this quite simply. We assign meaning to individual items through memory association. Too special to communicate, or too insignificant to have a purpose, it will collectively be reduced to stuff. Stuff is just a word that glosses over meaning, purpose and the production of its vessel; to numb its entirety and keep things simple. Just stuff.