This paper attempts to rethink the role of things in the ongoing constitution of life. It seeks to build upon existing accounts of things in the social sciences where the measure of things is taken in their capacity to trigger an emotional response in a human subject, arguing that it is also necessary to consider things where they do not disrupt and are not registered emotionally. It is argued that things can be usefully considered as a continual series of affective ‘micro-shocks’ working to generate affective atmospheres. These premises are explored through a brief empirical excursion into an autobiographical account of childhood life, Herbert Read's The Innocent Eye (1933). Read's account is sensitive to the role of things in life and adopts what might be understood as a stance of ‘childlike wonder’ towards a world full of things, where the human-as-thing is in a state of becoming in the midst of these. The paper concludes by reflecting on the implications of this discussion for three key issues: first, the usefulness of understanding things as affective; second, the thing-ness of things beyond their emotional rendering; third, the importance of experimentation in the reception and narration of things for better accounting for the work done by things.
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