As I wrote my recent post that leaned heavily on the post-Marxist, post-Structuralist philosophy of Jean Baudrillard, I looked about at my living room, stuffed with moving boxes and bags destined for charity donation, and thought:

Why is there so much stuff?

There was stuff I’d not touched for weeks, months, even years. And yet there were also clearly things I could recognize as having gotten after we had moved in to this apartment. Why was there so much stuff? Why had I acquired yet even more of it? And why had I not gotten rid of more of it earlier? The evidence was unmistakable, something, beyond rational understanding had driven and was still driving my urge to continually get more or consume.

When a behavior goes beyond reasonable measure, it suggests that something more is driving it: a compulsion, a mania, mental illness, or, perhaps most insidious of all, a narrative.