shopping is a burden

I've been letting go of a ton of stuff thanks to this blog! Blogging galvanizes my decluttering, materializing my dream of minimalism.

Shopping is a burden.
Shopping can get addictive as an escape mechanism. But escape is temporary and home awaits.
Decluttering will not change the problem if the underlying behavior is not challenged.

The supposition of the American crapitalist system is that shopping is recreation and relaxation. But that is wrong. Shopping is a burden. It causes a financial deficit by definition. It creates debt. It creates shame.

If you buy "it!" and you bring it home, you might:

• remove it from its shopping bag.
• throw away or recycle your shopping bag, raising eco guilt.
• remove it's packaging.
• throw away or recycle it's packaging, raising eco guilt. 
• wash it if it's a textile or kitchen item
• give it a place, otherwise it is clutter.
• contain it. it may require a larger container--a piece of furniture.
• use it or use it up
• get rid of it eventually 

Or you might not. When you watch Hoarders, you see piles of unidentifiable shopping bags with unidentifiable stuff. And new things in boxes. It is too burdensome to open the object. The piles are preferable.

The hunting and gathering done, the shopped for object has lost its value. It sits useless as clutter at home.

Many hoarders try so hard to save everything. Yet they are so wasteful. Shopping is not saving. Shopping is wasting.