Looking for Solutions

I finally have a chance to go into the local "Solutions" store, in the hopes of finding some storage bins for packing my things. Little do I realize that the store turns out to be entirely 'about' storage. I find a wide assortment of different styles, patterns, sizes and colors to meet the needs of keeping all my things in one place. Yet, oddly enough,  I am unable to locate the bins that fold and can easily be unfolded into carrying crates. It doesn't take long before I am bewildered by the selection of sizes and a little bit unsure as to which to buy...as well as which is needed. I finally opt for a medium sized white box with a convenient lid, and a rather affordable price. And I tell myself that if one is not enough, I can always come back for the next batch. After all, I doubt that the "Solutions" store will run out of storage items anytime soon. I also begin to feel the usual combination of confusion and slight nausea that besets me in larger department stores: too many choices for an item which has a similar function.
    As I walk home with purchase bagged and splayed between my outstretched thumb and index finger, I begin to reflect on how much of what this store sells is a mass-production version of what people used to collect in the past. What was once the makeshift milk-carton LP container is now a remodelled plastic one which looks much the same, but sells for $20-$40, depending on one's preferred size and style. It seems that retailers such as "Solutions" are manufacturing the kinds of inventive 'one-time' solutions people used to devise on their own to store their things. Old shoe boxes suddenly get resurrected into plastic, durable 'make-up' boxes. The tattered and half-collapsed box for the Christmas tree is now a transparent, coffin-sized Rubbermaid with clip-on lid and spiffy "new car" smell to boot. What used to be 'makeshift' and 'expedient' is now convenient and 'buy-able', not to mention matching with one's other décor.
   I often wonder why I sometimes feel this kind of 'numbness' (bordering on a headache) when I go to large stores with huge selections of disposable items. I think that perhaps it has to do with the relationship (or lack thereof) I have with material things. Sometimes, one's relationship with the material world is negotiated through invention. I recall the day when I moved to a semi-furnished apartment on Rogers Road years ago, and found out that I didn't have a desk on which to put my computer. (The year was 2002, and I didn't have a laptop at the time). Instead of going out and buying a new desk or ordering one from a catalogue, I decided to take a dresser that had no doors on it and make it into 'my desk'. Actually, it was quite easy. Because the doors had already been taken off the dresser and it was lying in the vestibule area of the apartment, it was just a matter of moving that hunk of furniture into the kitchen area. I used the 'no doors' part for my desktop and papers, while the surface held my monitor and keyboard. What I did with the dresser and where I placed it automatically converted it into a desk. And at that moment, I started to see the dresser/desk as a kind of 'invisible ally', helping me to feel more 'at home' in my new place.
       Had I bought a new desk from a retailer, perhaps I would never had felt so connected with the item, since in that case, it would have already been designed for the purpose of writing. Converting a dresser into a desk gave rise to a sense of gratitude and relief. It felt like the dresser was granting me a kind of empowerment to make it into what I needed it to be.
    So much of what is sold on markets these days is ready-made and tailor-made for users. While it's convenient and much appreciated, I wonder if too much convenience can lead to a sense of disconnection with the things around us. It is as though too much choice in what to buy and what 'fits' best can lead to a feeling of uncertainty. What I can conclude is that how I feel about material things depends more on my relationship to them than on the things themselves.