In the very early days of this blog, I told, anonymously, stories of what I called “High WASP” culture. Never mind if I had anything insightful to say–I think my early readers enjoyed the artifacts. Simple stuff, in other words.
Stuff tells stories when we let it. That glass, the gold-bordered lip of which, curved outward, we cannot see, comes from a yacht owned by my great-grandfather Mr. Bliss. Or maybe my great-great grandfather, also conveniently known as Mr. Bliss. Hand-painted: May, as in the SS May. The crossed flags represent a) The New York Yacht Club and b) a personal insignia Mr. Bliss must have invented himself. Everyone who registered their yachts at the NYYC seems to have invented their own flags.
In fact, my siblings and I now have a veritable raft of yacht tableware, which we riotously refer to as “yacht china,” pounding the back of non-yacht sofas in laughter, hanging out in someone’s living. We joke with some shared pain and happiness about the Bliss motto, Semper Sursum AKA Always Aim High. Because what else is there to do? Never knew our unvoiced family culture was in fact painted on a dozen-ish Spode plates.
(We plan to sell this stuff to whoever wants it, someone or someones who might get a kick out of idea of yacht china, make of it some transformed experience nothing to do with family.)
I have come to believe with all my heart that the very rich, as Mr. Bliss was, don’t amass stuff because they always wanted stuff. Does a young boy starting up a dry goods business in New York, even one that will become a banking concern, dream, as he stocks shelves, of a yacht with monogrammed china with a Greek key border? We think not.
The stuff of wealth, and this holds today, in my opinion, is about expanding one’s sense of self. Agency of personhood; the hunger to feel bigger. People call it power, but it doesn’t have to mean power over others, just power over the inexplicable reality of being alive.
Which poses the question, why do so few feed this hunger with service to others? Why stuff? Well, not why stuff, why so much so very big stuff? I have no idea. I can only imagine it’s to do with our drive to survive, which does not seem to know when to stand down. At least that’s a morally neutral interpretation. The SS May was eventually commandeered for war service and sunk in combat. I hope no one was lost.
Lover of sparkly things and fancy hotel linens though I have been, I have no desire whatsoever to own a yacht, instead having, as a reader once suggested, gotten over the fading family fortune. I no longer wish for Wendover.
I hope you have a wonderful weekend.
13 Responses
My MIL amassed a four-bedroom house full of stuff — records, documents, artifacts. She kept all these as talismans, I think, because she wanted to matter and didn’t realize she already did.
Real power lies in not needing to control others.
Oh, Maria, this makes me so sad, “she wanted to matter and didn’t realize she already did.” I hope your spouse evolved beyond that feeling.
Perfect.
Thank you, sir:)
A perceptive, thought-provoking post as always. I’ll think some more about your idea of big material accumulation in service of expanding the self. Seems apt and is sadly a current question.
Your post also moved me to think about your father who was chair of the English department when I was an undergrad at Stanford. This Feb 2022 obituary from the school has a beautiful photo and warm reminiscences by colleagues. Some of your readers might enjoy it. https://humsci.stanford.edu/feature/stanford-professor-w-bliss-carnochan-dies
I greatly enjoyed Professor Carnochan’s Stanford tribute, thank you for that!
This…
“ The stuff of wealth, and this holds today, in my opinion, is about expanding one’s sense of self. Agency of personhood; the hunger to feel bigger. People call it power, but it doesn’t have to mean power over others, just power over the inexplicable reality of being alive.”
Amen…loved this post Lisa…and the inexplicable reality of being alive.
Thank you, Jeanne.
Within your family lies a deep entrepreneurial spirit. Mr. Bliss certainly fits the bill.
Burgees, not flags.
I married in the mid-sixties, when proper brides had their “good” china, their “everyday” china, their “good” crystal, their “everyday” glassware, their “good” silver, their “everyday” stainless, etc – and I still have almost all of it, after almost 59 years and countless dinner parties. But I soon got bored with that tasteful good china, and began buying random plates etc in different patterns by different high-class purveyors of china – it gave me great pleasure to set a lovely table with all the different patterns (which I sometimes placed according to individual diner) and gave a certain je ne sais quoi to the dinner party itself. (as in, ” She gets Haddon Hall. He gets Gold Corinthian.”)
In other words, I had – and have – fun with all my “stuff,” and that’s the point: Have fun with it – as with your own “yacht china” – and don’t take yourself OR your “stuff” too seriously! And be ready to look down benignly from heaven as your heirs sell it all off, so others can claim a few of your ancestral goodies as their own…
“The stuff of wealth is about expanding one’s sense of self.”
That, and as WSJ put it so well today in their Birkin Bag piece: “To carry one is to signal that the wearer can afford to drop anywhere from $10,000 to $100,000 on a handbag.”
Then as now, all about signaling .
Service hits a different reward center than stuff, do you think? Super powerful but not so immediate?
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