Stuff serves you, or it gets in your way.
Stuff enhances your life, or it makes you stumble.
Stuff makes your life more beautiful, or it clutters your life with the unnecessary.
Stuff takes energy many times over: to earn the money to buy it, to spend the money shopping for it, to maintain it, to move it, to clean it.
It’s true that our possessions possess us.
Stuff is not neutral. It helps or it hinders. But stashing stuff in a box, or ignoring it, does not make it neutral. If it’s not helping your life, it’s hindering it. I am quite sure of this.
I just spent many days helping my daughter move from one apartment to another on the streets of Alston, MA, which is where many Bostonian students live, in decrepit housing. The streets overflowed with stuff, quite literally. Then I spent a week helping my parents unclutter their closets and basement. I saw the relief in their faces as the boxes left the house in a steady stream, headed for the Goodwill.