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In the world I live in right now, commodities come cheaply. They may be passed down from family and friends who no longer need them, purchased at stores that mass-produce low-quality items, reducing costs, or gotten second-hand, in a store or in a garbage bin. People who are not homeless usually possess objects. Many of the young people I know are just starting collections that, after a lifetime, can amount to a house-full of things. I get to share things I own with the people I live with. In return, I am able to use some of the objects they have.

Sharing objects is usually a simple activity among people we know. I have been fortunate enough to know people who are generous and who have let me borrow things that I required. Over the years, this has prevented me from spending unnecessarily, when there were people who were only glad to share with me. Of course, this sharing only comes with closeness. An individual is more likely to share with a friend than with a stranger. Trust is created and/or maintained when someone says, “Here, this is mine. You can have it for a while, bring it back later.” I have many things in my possession that do not actually belong to me.

An unfortunate thing about out world is the number of things we own that we actually do not want or need, but continue to possess. Many of those things are useless for human survival, baubles of the capitalist world. Increasingly, objects are produced and purchased without meaning. The Industrial Era introduced machines to replace people as craftsmen; now, machines spew out a stupendous amount of junk that we don’t need and that is easily thrown away. Many things need to be done to reverse the values of our culture of consumption.