An Embarassment of Riches

We consume. We are a society and an economy rooted in consumption. We see this now more clearly than ever before. If we "consumers" don't spend, have no desire or few resources with which to acquire, the economy falters, then fails. We must be acquisitive, we must desire more and more and more to fill our cupboards and drawers and closets with ever more STUFF.

I recently read about an art student in Finland who used traditional archaeological methods to assess and catelogue her possessions. She discovered she owned a total of 6,126 objects (housed in a relatively small space).

But the most interesting part of the story is her analysis of how often she used each object. For example she listed objects as 'never used', less frequently used; used yearly or month; weekly or daily. Using that construction, she determined that only 1% of her objects were used daily and 24% were not used at all!
Objects used every month - 587
Objects used every week - 401
Objects used every day - 61

84% of her possessions were just CLUTTER!