ROOM FOR A PONY

In Paleolithic times, the nagging household question was “Honey, where’s my club?” That wasn’t a hard one, when you only had three or four possessions.  Today the question is “Where’s my this, where’s my that!?” and on and on. A different question every time. Drives Honey crazy.

Why can’t we find our stuff? Because, unlike in the Paleolithic days, we have way too much of it. Sometimes when we can’t find the thing we need, we go out and buy another one. Then we have even more stuff.

Such a torrent of items hurls its way into our lives that we have to constantly get rid of stuff just to stake out room for our bodies. So then getting rid of stuff becomes a huge ongoing project that takes up gobs of our time. And you can’t just stick everything outside your front door and have it go its merry way — because it’s not just your home that’s run out of room, it’s the entire globe.

As you might imagine, the Paleolithic people didn’t have these problems. The few items they did need to keep on hand fit nicely into their caves. Consequently, they weren’t faced with the 873 disposal decisions we have to make every day, each one laden with positive or negative consequences for the planet.