To Have and To Hold

I was at a conference the other day and, as you might imagine, I was handed a folder upon signing in.

In it were the usual suspects: program, pen, pad, and sundry flyers and brochures. It was much more information than I needed, much more than I had time to look at, and no doubt I will throw out (aka recycle) almost all of the materials today.

(I will, however, keep the folder.)

My point is not the waste involved - though that is a subject future conference organizers must address and one worthy of attention. Consultants and companies are standing by, ready to help you "green" your gatherings. There are oh so many creative job opportunities in this emerging green economy.

But I digress. My point is a question: Why do we feel compelled to hand out so much stuff, and why do we take it and carry it around - for we dutifully do, without a fuss. Indeed if we registered at a gathering and did not get something in return, we would feel the transaction was somehow incomplete, our entrance insecure, our welcome somewhat questionable.

That simple exchange, a name or signature as our password yielding in return an open door and a packet of goods, is a ritual of welcome. We ask for entry and are granted a symbolic shibboleth in the shape of a folder indicating that we are "in", we are now one of, one with, this temporary, migratory but valuable tribe.

In one of the non-profit organizations I am involved with, we are working on creating what the industry calls a "leave behind," that is, a flyer, brochure or other compact written document that we can give to people we visit and, appropriately, leave behind after we depart. We rely on it to tell our story and remind the one visited that we were here.

Babies are born with an instinctive ability to clutch and grab something that tickles their hand. It is called the palmer grasp reflex. So fundamental is this grasping ability that it is used to help assess babies' health in the nearly universal Apgar test.

And Queen Elizabeth is famed for carrying a handbag wherever she goes. The monarch is heir to a realm that once circled the earth. She needn't shlep money, keys, credit cards, driver's license like the rest of us do. She needs, perhaps, a tissue, lipstick and a pocket mirror, which her entourage could readily have available at her side. So why does this woman who owns so much and needs to carry so little, clutch a pocketbook wherever she goes.

What indeed do these things have in common: a conference folder, an organization's leave-behind, a baby's grasping instinct and a ruling monarch?

They all remind us, teach us, that we like to hold things; we need to hold things. Feelings aren't sufficiently created or managed without some tangible stuff to reinforce them.

We wear wedding bands to show others, and remind ourselves, of our status. Linus holds his blanket to conjure up feelings of security. Brides hold flowers as they walk down the aisle - we can only imagine the reasons why. Holding the hand of a loved one reduces pain - at least for women.

We are physical, embodied entities. We need the comfort and reassurance of stuff. Which is why discussions of how and why we consume are so difficult and complex even as they are crucial.

Which is why this whole field of environmentalism and sustainability, which itself is but a subset of what we make, buy, use and discard, is only partially an issue of science and technology, and largely an issue of the human spirit.

Yet if you look for courses on the human spirit and consumption in environmental programs, if you seek the anthropology of buying, holding, grasping, carrying, owning, possessing in sustainability programs, you will be hard pressed to find any.

We must fix that. We must knock down the barriers between the human and physical sciences to better help us understand who we are, what we need and how we can use that information to better form a world of renewal, health, sufficiency and joy.