> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.smdp.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # What’s the point? - URL: https://www.smdp.com/whats-the-point-20061219/ - Published: 2006-12-19T16:00:00.000Z - Updated: 2026-10-25T01:31:04.000Z - Author: David Pisarra - Tags: Opinion, Santa Monica, #archive-import Tonight is the fifth night of Hanukkah, we have six days to go until Christmas and seven for Kwanzaa. Boxing Day is the day after Christmas and is the traditional feeding frenzy of bargain shoppers. I personally like to go Stats to stock up on all the decorations that I avoided purchasing prior to Christmas. The stores will be humming with the screams of frazzled clerks, the cacophonous ringing of cash registers and the shrill cries of children who want all the toys they didn’t already get. Our social fabric has been woven with a message that we must buy gifts for people who have more than they could ever use.We supply our homes with enough food, toys, gadgets and gizmos that we forget how to live simply. This mad rush to acquire more, hold on to everything and buy gadgets and gizmos is infectious and cancerous. We have more than we could ever need and yet we still continue to acquire more. The problem is that we collect junk. We store stuff we don’t need. We have fear of not having enough or losing what we have so that we are now incapable of letting go of our useless junk and instead, we store it. My partner and I are guilty of this particular quagmire. We have a storage unit that we had not visited for almost two years. In it was an old China cabinet from my mother that doesn’t even vaguely blend in with the style I like. I don’t want to store it, yet I don’t want to use it in my house. We have thousands of yards of Blue Screen (Now that is a something that would only happen in Los Angeles!), some old snowboards and a high-end keyboard that hasn’t been used in years. Why do we have such an easy time collecting things and such a hard time letting go of the past? What is the source of our societal passion for hoarding? I think it comes from two places. One, our desire to keep up with the neighbors. If they have something, we want one just like it, but a little better. It is this constant competition that allows marketers to introduce new products every year with the ever-popular “new and Improved” moniker that is so cherished. The second one is the sense of fear that we are fed on a daily basis., not just of the al- Qaida variety, but the fear that we might need something and not have it. We get this message from our parents, from our Scout leaders, from the television and newspapers. My parents grew up in the Depression and my mother instilled me with a sense of: “Better to have it and not need it, than need it and not have it.” Reporters are always warning us about some dire emergency right around the corner, and asking us if we are prepared for the next firestorm, winter storm, earthquake, hurricane, tornado or depression.It is this sense of impeding doom that keeps us always wanting to hold tighter to the past. This feeling that somehow we will lose out if we let go of the junk. Buying a lot of junk is good for the economy and makes the President look successful, but we can do better in our economy by using our money wisely, and more importantly, the gifts can be more valuable. I’d like to suggest that this holiday season, rather than collect junk, or worse, give someone else junk that they then feel the need to keep for sentimental reasons, do something different. Give a donation to the TreePeople, buy some dinners at your favorite local restaurant and have them prepped for take out and give them away to that family you know that has less than you. Send your great aunt a card with a note saying you love her and spent $200 on her favorite charity. Honestly, she doesn’t need another counter-top kitchen appliance... ever. Take the time you would have spent on the freeway, in the parking garage and in the checkout line, and write a letter to your sister and let her know how you really feel about her. This holiday season, give your spouse something they really want — your attention and some affection. Make a thermal carafe of hot chocolate and take a walk on the beach. Go ride the carousel at the Pier together. It’s not great for the President’s economy, but it’ll do wonders for your home life. Plus, you don’t have to pay to store it. David Pisarra is a lawyer in the Santa Monica firm of Pisarra & Grist. He or (310) 664-9969. *Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on December 19, 2006.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/121906.pdf?ref=smdp.com)