The Art of Hoarding

Many of us bring home stuff daily and dump it somewhere around the house or shed, but don't really work hard at disposing of the surplus, out-of-date junk that clutters the place up. Why do we adopt this routine? Maybe because we are surrounded by stores and shops, if we are urban dwellers, but we aren't necessarily close to disposal sites. I work with a man who makes disposal an Artform; he simply sets out when acquiring something additional to keep the balance by tossing other items, convinced that he no longer needs them. Result? His home is very neat and tidy but has a distinctively unlived look - you visit and you wonder if anyone actually lives there. The other aspect is that he is 'forever' searching for something that he threw away and now realises he has to have. It's a state of mind and probably goes back to our particular ancestry, whether our forebears were hoarders or the opposite. Just a bit of trivia I spend 5 seconds per day contemplating!