This modern world of muchness

I slept like a child again and have woken up to a beautiful, breezy blue-sky day. Sold our beloved coffee machine yesterday and was sorry to see it go. I'm not attached to much but that DeLonghi machine was more than a machine you know? A memory of Italy and the warm ritual of many cafes for all the coffee lovers who ever visited our home. Yet, every single time I pack up a home (seven times in the last 10 years) I think to myself that I really must simplify my life, own less, buy less, accumulate less. And its so hard at least where I live not to go out and buy something. Trinkets and beads I haven't worn, a neck pillow that I have used once, because it breaks my neck far worse than sleeping on my own shoulder like a drunken lout, 100 multi-purpose cleaning wipes for cleaning the laptop screen (75 unused), sachets of sample hyacinth moisturiser or some such(yuck) papers, papers, papers, particle board furniture, nifty tools that have not been used at all, the list is endless. I'll manage to sell some things, recycle some and the rest will all end up in a landfill somewhere, while I take more long-haul flights and buy new things made in some factory in India or China.
What's the alternative? I'm not even going to talk about carbon footprint--rendered almost meaningless from overuse, misuse and dodgy calculations. Please read Specter's Big Foot in The New Yorker. Michael Pollan has also written a great article called, Why Bother? He takes the question of individual responsibility and works out some answers. It's really worth reading.

"Let’s say I do bother, big time. I turn my life upside-down, start biking to work, plant a big garden, turn down the thermostat so low I need the Jimmy Carter signature cardigan, forsake the clothes dryer for a laundry line across the yard, trade in the station wagon for a hybrid, get off the beef, go completely local. I could theoretically do all that, but what would be the point when I know full well that halfway around the world there lives my evil twin, some carbon-footprint doppelgänger in Shanghai or Chongqing who has just bought his first car (Chinese car ownership is where ours was back in 1918), is eager to swallow every bite of meat I forswear and who’s positively itching to replace every last pound of CO2 I’m struggling no longer to emit. So what exactly would I have to show for all my trouble?
A sense of personal virtue, you might suggest, somewhat sheepishly. But what good is that when virtue itself is quickly becoming a term of derision?"

"And even if in the face of this derision I decide I am going to bother, there arises the whole vexed question of getting it right. Is eating local or walking to work really going to reduce my carbon footprint? According to one analysis, if walking to work increases your appetite and you consume more meat or milk as a result, walking might actually emit more carbon than driving. A handful of studies have recently suggested that in certain cases under certain conditions, produce from places as far away as New Zealand might account for less carbon than comparable domestic products. True, at least one of these studies was co-written by a representative of agribusiness interests in (surprise!) New Zealand, but even so, they make you wonder. If determining the carbon footprint of food is really this complicated, and I’ve got to consider not only “food miles” but also whether the food came by ship or truck and how lushly the grass grows in New Zealand, then maybe on second thought I’ll just buy the imported chops at Costco, at least until the experts get their footprints sorted out."