Author Archives: Brendan

Matter out of Place

I’ve been thinking about this common waste object since Halloween: candy wrappers.

In the weeks following Halloween, it’s tough to walk around any semi-residential area without spotting lollipop wrappers, squished chocolates, and tiny cardboard Nerds boxes.

One of the simplest ways Douglas frames the concept of dirt is “matter out of place” (pg. 36). When the candy is eaten, the empty wrapper belongs in its designated place, which is an appropriate garbage receptacle. Leaving it anywhere else is disrupting the order of the universe! Seeing this wrapper on the ground in the center of a sidewalk is wrong, but seeing it on the ground in a dumpster or landfill would be acceptable.

Another interpretation of dirt could be matter that may pose hygienic or pathological harm to us. This wrapper itself is seemingly innocuous, as someone trusted its manufacturing process and food cleanliness standards enough to consume its contents. If this wrapper were handed to me alongside a crumpled ball of printer paper, I would most likely trust the cleanliness of the paper before this wrapper. Maybe it’s the knowledge that food once existed in it, or that someone’s mouth may have been pressed against it to lick out the last crumbs. Why is my mind brought to food again in this example? I’m absolutely certain that, of the 500 inorganic lab-synthesized chemicals compromising the candy’s ingredients, 499 of them are high-strength preservatives that would render the candy sterile even after a nuclear meltdown at the Nerds™ WonderFactory™. Any type of food just seems to carry this aura of potential disease.

Shit

A topic that stuck out in my head was the distance at which we are removed from our own waste. Just to be clear, I’m not saying people should like to be around their own shit! The natural avoidance of humans to materials that can make us sick is completely understandable, but the treatment of human waste in society suggests that humans seek to distance themselves from the thought of it entirely. A few differing explanations of this cover some aspects of this phenomenon.

One example is advertising. The other day, while changing my cat’s litter, I noticed that the litter box didn’t actually say what it is for:

A box of cat litter

A box of cat litter similar to the one I was reading

If I had somehow come from an environment where I knew nothing about cats and their bathroom habits, I would have no idea what use this product serves. It advertises its “superior odor control” and its ability to stay fresh “even when you can’t scoop”. This is strange in contrast to something like shampoo, which still has instructions!

Not that these instructions are very helpful…

My mind is also drawn to toilet paper commercials, where characters will dance around on clouds and mention how incredibly soft the new inch-thick toilet paper is, but the most they will say about its function is “enjoy the go!”

Overall, our culture has a strange relationship with a good number of the natural processes our bodies experience… shit is just one of them!

A display of license plates hanging on a wall

Hoarding and Collecting: The Fine Line

Where do you draw the line between collecting and hoarding?

For better or worse (probably worse), I am a collector of many things. If you were to look around my room, my two most prominent collections would be license plates and computer parts.

A display of license plates hanging on a wall

A sampling of my license plates

A collection of computer parts, six sticks of RAM

Some computer parts I happened to have on my desk

I collect license plates solely for decoration and the fun of collecting. I don’t own a car, nor do I even have a drivers license! In total, there are about 50 hanging on my walls. Some are from

On the other hand, I collect computer parts for utility. Whenever I see an electronic device being discarded, I’ll disassemble it and remove any reusable parts that appear to be in working order. They are useful to have around for fixing or upgrading people’s devices. Since they typically come into my possession for free, I like to give them away at no cost.

If a random poll was taken and people were asked if either my license plates or computer parts constituted more of a “hoard”, I would bet that the computer parts would win, despite being the more functional of the two collections.

It’s odd where we tend to draw the lines between collecting and hoarding. Quantity, cleanliness, and organization seem to be some of the main deciding factors between collections and hoards.