There's a lot of "minimalism" lifestyle that suggests you should keep only the things you use most often and get rid of the rest. Lately it's been trendy to call this clothing approach a "capsule wardrobe", and I've heard of similar approaches to kitchens, toiletries, and general household goods.
But I find myself wondering if it's all a conspiracy to get people to ultimately buy more stuff.
If you get rid of something because you haven't used it in years, then you'll need to buy a new one the next time you need something like that. For example, I keep an dark winter coat that I haven't worn in a decade, just in case I'm ever in a situation where my standard red coat wouldn't be appropriate. I keep warm winter boots that I haven't worn since the 20th century just in case I ever need warm winter boots. If I didn't keep these things and then had to go to a funeral in the winter, or had to walk outdoors in the cold for far longer than usual, I'd have no choice but to go on a frantic shopping trip and buy a new dark coat or warm boots.
You'd have to buy even more stuff if you went minimalist on things you use all the time. For example, when I originally discovered Victoria's Secret cotton panties, I stopped wearing all my other panties because they were nowhere near as perfect. But I kept them in my underwear drawer. Then, when Victoria's Secret changed the design, making them uncomfortable and useless, I still had other underwear that fit me and was at least marginally acceptable. If I hadn't had any other underwear, I would have had to go through a costly, irritating, and time-consuming trial and error process. It isn't always readily apparent that underwear is unsuitable without wearing it for a day, and because I need clean underwear every day I'd have to buy multiples of each potential new underwear rather owning zero clean, hole-free pairs of underwear. And, because you can't return underwear, I'd just end up spending a whole lot of money on a bunch of useless, uncomfortable underwear, and possibly not even end up with anything better than what I owned before I switched to VS.
I'm sure retailers would love if everyone had to shop like this, but I'd find it irritating.
2 comments:
Not all practice of minimalism serves retail conspiracy, but all minimalism in the media is. Media have no business model outside of marketing. Certainly minimalism as the prescribed antidote to "hoarding" is about stimulating demand and moving merchandise. If by minimalism we mean minimizing aquisition of things rather than paring down possessions to a minimum, that is of course anti-retail and another thing altogether. An good example of this authentic type of minimalism is the first chapter of Thoreau's Walden, appropriately titled Economy.
Everything is a conspiracy to get us to buy more stuff. That's the sole purpose of the world we live in: buy, buy, buy, more, more, more.
I'm sure there is authentic simple living and minimalism out there. But IMO, that is a serious life choice that would take time and mental/emotional/psychological space to cultivate, almost like a spiritual practice.
Short of that, most of us could stand to just buy and consume less, without calling it anything. Save money, save space, create less waste.
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