Does stuff really make us happy?

William Shakespeare waxed on it. George Carlin joked about it. The economy is built on it.

What is it?

Why, stuff, of course.

Since the first humans began coveting nonessential objects, the pursuit of pleasurable stuff has been part of daily life.

Americans arguably have more stuff because they have a lot of discretionary income. Go to any shopping center and look around. How many of the wares offered there are truly necessary?

Television stokes desire with extravagant odes to home, life and auto. TLC’s “Clean Sweep” may rid people of their junky stuff, but “Trading Spaces” replaces it with cooler stuff. “What Not to Wear” helps regular folks exchange their bad fashion choices for good fashion choices - more stuff. There’s MTV’s “Cribs,” CMT’s “Trick My Truck” and on and on and on.

Whether viewed as a force behind “progress” or as a burden to be shed, humanity’s long and complicated relationship with material possessions can’t be denied. But perhaps it can be better understood.

As an American studies teacher at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, Janet Rose tells her students that attitudes about stuff are ultimately tied to feelings of self-worth, including the wish to be superior.

For example, mortgages.

“For 100 years, we’ve all had this grand belief that owning a house in the United States made you solidly middle class,” Rose said. “So if I go deeply in debt and owe $400,000 on my $480,000 mortgage - I am good. You, on the other hand, have charged too many pairs of jeans on your MasterCard - you are bad.

“And, obviously, all that does is make me feel good. It’s that classic thing where people try to justify their own consumption by pointing out the deviance of the consumption of others. So the real truth is that it’s people making judgments about other people.”

Trying to offer a judgment-free zone for stuff is veteran flea market retailer Rodney Hartle of Overland Park, Kan.

On weekends, he convivially occupies his Westport Flea Market booth, which is stuffed with sports memorabilia, books, records, gold and silver coins, diamonds, designer plates, dolls, Elvis items, religious icons, lingerie, glassware, salt and pepper shakers, Christmas ornaments and loads of jewelry.

“I’ve got 16,000 pieces of jewelry that women have to have,” Hartle said. “Women like to look good, and I’m the guy who likes to make them look good.”

Many of Hartle’s customers are glad to buy stuff they couldn’t afford earlier in life. But sometimes, even those purchases require a certain rationalization.

“When you get to the point where you can afford it, you really may not want it,” Hartle said. “But you still think back, ‘Well, when I was a kid, I wanted that.’ I want that. Wanting is the thing that makes this world go around. If you don’t desire things, you’ll never accomplish anything.”

One thing Hartle doesn’t desire, however, is people overspending.

“One lady who buys jewelry from me will say, ‘I don’t really need this ring, but I’ve got to have it,’” he said. “So I set it back for her. She comes in and pays me $10 a week. And every time she comes in, she says, ‘Boy, my husband, he’s going to be upset with me.’ So I try to figure out a way to help. I say, ‘Well, maybe you can’t afford it.’”

Does that ever change her mind?

“Never,” he said.

Hartle counts himself among the impetuously stuff-hungry. It’s why he bought a new truck.

“I had to have a new truck because my next-door neighbor had one,” he said. “I had to beat him. And then he moves away, so I don’t have anybody to compete with. That’s bad. That’s a lesson learned.”

Kevin McGriff of Kansas City, Mo., has learned from his Buddhist faith that material things aren’t important.

“I don’t need to accumulate a lot of stuff to make myself happy,” McGriff said. “I am not in this world to make myself happy. I am in this world to help others alleviate their personal sufferings.”

According to the teaching of the Buddha, life is permeated with suffering caused by desire, and suffering ceases when desire ceases.

McGriff blames “so-called modern society” for the “over-bombardment” of stuff. But he came to that conclusion over time.

After being raised a Mormon, McGriff wanted new answers to such questions as “Who am I?” and “What am I supposed to do while I’m here?”

As a student at Rockhurst University, he found an intellectual mentor in his philosophy teacher, Sister Rosemary Flanagan.

“She opened my mind and allowed me to explore,” McGriff said. “She helped me understand the question ... in ‘Alice in Wonderland,’ where Alice states to the Caterpillar, ‘I’m not myself, you see,’ and the Caterpillar’s response is, ‘Well, then, who are you?’”

McGriff began researching Buddhism, eventually taking up the faith that keeps him tied to his fellow man rather than stuff.

“If you look at it from the standpoint of ‘I don’t need it,’ you’ve alleviated that suffering and you no longer have that desire,” he said.

“And you no longer have the internal stress that’s associated with ‘How can I figure out how to get it?’”

But the pervasive power of advertising is difficult to escape, said William McIntosh, professor of psychology at Georgia Southern University in Statesboro, Ga.

“We’re definitely being lied to in a very basic way,” he said. “The message we’re getting is that this stuff will make us happy. But the underlying message is that consuming will make us happy, even though there’s lots of research that says, no, absolutely not.”

A chronic error that consumers make is confusing pleasure with happiness, McIntosh said.

“If you’re getting that buzz from buying whatever it is you’re buying, you’re getting momentary feedback that something’s pleasurable,” he said. “We almost consider it a signpost toward happiness mistakenly. So you’re thinking, ‘This is making me feel good, so I’m going in the right direction.’

“But, in psychology, it’s also been likened to an addiction. We can’t stop, even if we say, ‘I know that this isn’t going to make me happy’ or ‘I know that I can’t afford this.’ There is this compulsion to continue consuming.”