The Philosophy of Everyday Objects

How Mugs, Smartphones, and Keepsakes Shape the Self

Look around. What do you see?

Familiar, everyday life, with its sameness, predictability and naturalness, comforts us. In fact, most of what is with us everyday is largely unnoticed and not perceived - the actual understanding of something our eyes provide is often missing. These commonplace things are the staples of life, stored in the cupboards of our minds like flour and noodles, only to be truly perceived when we focus our attention on them for the reason we got them in the first place.

A chipped coffee mug, frayed rug, pencil holder and flower pot are emblems of this selective focus that characterizes our consciousness…the ability to see and then perceive, to see and then visualize, to see and then impose meaning. This is certainly true of us, but has broadened in scope in recent years with the awareness that other animals do much the same thing. Either by instinct or uniquely human willfulness, the result is the same…everyday bits and pieces become invisible.

We see the prosaic items as having some utility, but not urgency. Beneath this functional utility lies a profound philosophical stance when these objects carry with them the memory, identity or meaning that we attribute to them. In that sense, a pottery shard is not just a piece of broken bowl, but the symbolic identifier of a grandfather’s pottery shed or a golden gift from a loved one destroyed in an earthquake.

These objects shape who we think we are. For anyone obsessed with having too many of these everyday objects they might do well to examine the thicker story each has rather than the thin outline of the space they take up in our brains. They are extensions of lived experience.

Consider the humble, cracked and glued, worn and discolored tray holding the day’s watch, phone and jewelry. On the face of it, it is nothing more than a flat piece of porcelain that cannot function the way it was originally intended. But, for many of us, this kind of tray is irreplaceable for the emotional pressure it has on our psyche as to what it was originally and what it has become. Maybe a souvenir, a gift from a dead friend, some yard sale item on that clear spring day, or simply that it has been there so long we no longer really see it.

In many respects, items like this bedside tray are irreplaceable. When we look for our phone, that is often where it will be, or when it is time to gussy up for that dinner party it is where the earrings usually sit. This item, and the items a piece generally holds, are unremarkable items that form our identity, a point of reflection for the artistic, emotional, and even physical nature of our reality. This is true even for the most humdrum things, the pencil-holding tiny pottery vase, the slippers tucked under the bed, the tray for our change, or the nightlight carefully pointing the way to the bathroom are all a part of our daily lives and not anyone else’s…in every sense, they are us.

I once wanted to give a gift to a friend to honor her on her birthday. The work she had done to personalize a vacation cabin in the woods was impressive. I photographed the ordinary details of her life there - the edges of found picture frames, the collection of agates, the red rooster sculpture in the corner, the Chinese porcelain towel rack, and dozens more that defined her space. I put these together in a small book. At first I was taken back by the casual way she accepted the gift with as much, “This is nice,” to a sing-song, “Thank you.” It took me years to realize why the gift was regarded this way instead of as the tribute to her personal view of her life there: These were items she took for granted and was puzzled that anyone would take the time to notice them because she didn’t, or at least she never acknowledged that to me. I suppose the book will have more value if the cabin burns down.

This absorption of moments like this with her keepsakes was predictable now that I realize the place that these everyday items have for any of us. We project our internal emotional states onto the physical environment around us and the hand-tooled hope chest, native wood headboard, or sterling silver tea set originally owned by Grandma seems of no intrinsic value other than that which a home decorator places on it. They are priceless if destroyed by fire or flood, but taken for granted if the friendly, warm spring wind gently blows through the window.

Everyday articles prove we’ve lived. These keepsakes, whether treasured or not, serve as tangible evidence that our brains have a memory of each in an otherwise neutered environment. It is only when they are lost that we grieve the experience of not having that which we took for granted for 50 years. In that sense, when gone, so too is a part of us that vanishes with it.

Of course, the smartphone has altered this somewhat. How wonderful it must be for the victim of a house fire to show another the home they once had, and even the fireplace that was too close to the Christmas tree causing the blaze, is not enough to give context to a life well-lived in the photo album shown on their phone. It has been estimated that of the 7 billion humans on the planet, 3 billion own a smartphone. Of them, 2-3 billion photographs are taken every day of everything from the delicious steak meal, to the petunia by the door, to their precious honeymoon. Smartphone photos seem to have a utility that camera phones do not.

Our phones are something that Chester Gould, the creator of the Dick Tracy cartoon character in 1931 (and here is where my readers, from Millennials to Generation Alpha, hit the delete button!), could not have foreseen. Tracy talked to his watch like a telephone and even took in videos through his “2-Way Wrist Radio.” I do that at least once a week on a smart watch. Sure, our phones and our smart watches are useful, but what is less appreciated is that they perpetuate the everyday items around us. They give everlasting life to that which may have been intended as temporary, prominence to that which was supposed by superfluous.

Ultimately, we now live in a world that cannot overlook the common but often champions it. We are not really isolated in our consciousness, but now propped up by countless everyday items that define us. Our coffee mugs comfort us, treasured keepsakes ground us, phones broaden our horizons. By recognizing these items, bringing our awareness to them such that we perceive them rather than just see them so we don’t trip over them, we affirm our humanity right down to the toothpick holders that Grandma used 100 years ago. They give our lives meaning and continuity and enable us to know ourselves better by being able to see inside what we choose to hold in our hands.

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