The Existential Garage Sale Manifesto, Part 2

If you can resist the urge to acquire stuff you had no desire for before you woke up this morning, garage sales (existential and otherwise) can be a good way to simplify; you can unload unnecessary stuff or obtain necessary stuff without feeling you’ve directly contributed to the stuff crisis. In fact, lots of little daily actions give me a small measure of well being in the face of the stuff avalanche: filling the small green biobags with egg shells, vegetable nubbins and coffee grounds and leaving them out in the compost bin for pickup; religiously recycling paper, plastic and glass each week; observing the ever-decreasing amount of actual trash we discard from our house each week as more of it goes into recycling and compost; using the library or buying used books rather than new ones where possible; resisting purchase of plastic crap, or stuff over packaged in plastic crap; reveling in the clean, peaceful look of a room with a few beautiful things in it and no clutter; walking and riding buses instead of driving, and retaining the job with the 7-minute commute.

But of course the guilt trip is alive and well: for two people we use way more electricity than seems humanly possible—no doubt too many devices are on all the time despite their stand-by modes; lights are left on to lend some psychological security at night; juice flows to keep the icebox cold and the hot tub hot (not luxury, but medical necessity to deal with neck and back pain after sitting too long in front of the electricity sucking computers). Always the tradeoffs.