Member-only story
Decluttering
Decluttering Is A Trap; Just Stop Buying Crap!
Instead of binging and purging, I’m keeping my old stuff
I know Marie Kondo says you should “release” your stuff. She’s made a fortune advising people to declutter.
I will make zero money advising you to do otherwise.
There’s a reason we are being encouraged to dump all our stuff:
They want us to throw away our things so we have room to replace everything with new stuff. It’s the household version of binging and purging, and it’s not a good way to live.
It stuffs our landfills, consumes energy and resources — and often entails taking advantage of exploited workers making cut-rate, low-quality stuff. This is especially true of clothing, but compare the craftsmanship and materials of my very old (reupholstered) sofa and a brand new one.
Capitalism can’t survive too many people like me. I simply don’t buy enough new crap.
This is a good time to think about buying less stuff.
Broken supply chains, looming world war, a pandemic that may spring back, inflation …. Maybe you’d like to think carefully about what you buy, and then … just ……