Materialism

            "There must be more to life than having everything. In the short story "On Dumpster Diving" by Lars Eighner, the author explains the time he spent homeless and scavenging through dumpsters. The time he spent going through other people's trash taught him a valuable lesson on materialism. He realized most people are in a "rat race" for things that have no real value to them. In the story, "My Wood" by E.M. Forster, the author narrates the first piece of land he bought. He did not seem to be very taken by it. He describes owning property as making him feel heavy, making him feel it ought to be larger, and making him feel as though he ought to do something to his property. Both "On Dumpster Diving" and "My Wood" seem to have the same views on property, that it is almost valueless.
             In Lars Eighner's story, he tells of teaching people how to "dumpster dive". However, they had a few problems with discerning what was really valuable and what was worthless to them. "All the dumpster divers I have known come to the point of trying to acquire everything they touch This is, of course, hopeless." Just like other people acquire as many things as they can from malls, these people were acquiring as many things as they could from the dumpsters. Eventually, "most divers come to realized that they must restrict themselves." The author, however, knew how to take what was valuable and leave what he knew was worthless to himself. "Take what I can find and let the rest go by there is no value in the abstract. A thing I cannot use or make useful, perhaps by trading, has no value however fine or rare it may be." This can be said in relation to money, what good is it if you cannot trade it for something useful and what good are expensive clothes if they cannot keep you warm or dry?.
             E.M. Forster's story was about how he bought himself a piece of land and was immensely unsatisfied with it. He described his land as making him feel heavy.