Scientific Logic: Unnecessary Things We Buy and Keep in Our House

How We Clutter Our Homes in Our Brief Lives

by lim ju boo

(Incidentally, I just read the passing of a friend at 72 in Australia that coincide with my earlier written thoughts here):

The modern home is often less of a sanctuary and more of a warehouse for things that are not actually necessary. We enter adulthood seeking comfort, but we frequently end up trapped in a cycle of endless buying. This happens because of a simple, hidden rule of consumerism: one purchase always demands another. When we look closely at what we truly need to live well, the list is remarkably short, yet our living spaces remain packed to the brim with things that require constant maintenance.

The Anatomy of the "Add-On" Burden

We rarely buy just one standalone object. Instead, we purchase entry tickets into complex ecosystems of maintenance, power, and storage. This is the accumulation trap, where a single initial item multiplies into a heavy burden of clutter that fills our rooms.

This cycle plays out across every corner of our daily routines. When we expand our transport by assembling a vehicle fleet of second or third cars, we immediately demand multiple parking spaces, extra insurance policies, routine oil changes, and annual road taxes. If we choose to expand our living habitats by bringing home a dog or a cat, we find ourselves forced to manage food bowls, specific leashes, litter boxes, grooming tools, and vet visits. Even creating contained ecosystems like a small aquarium for fish forces us to buy water filters, air pumps, heating elements, chemical water conditioners, and fish nets.

Our intellectual and leisure pursuits suffer from the exact same expansion. Media collections of physical books quickly demand wooden bookcases, specialized bookends, and regular dusting to keep the room clean. The modern technology chain requires that a single computer purchase be accompanied by a specific charging cable, a protective sleeve, external storage drives, and specialized cleaning cloths. Even our kitchen rituals fall victim to this trend, such as when an espresso machine immediately demands paper filters, specific descaling chemicals, a coffee bean grinder, and dedicated cups. Every time we bring a new item, vehicle, or pet into our homes, we invite its necessary companions along with it. We do not just maintain the primary object; we must also organize, clean, store, and upgrade the endless add-ons required to keep it running. More often than not we accumulate so many things that we put them in plastic bags and hung them on the beams across the house on the walls or under our beds and tables or wherever there is space. In fact 99.9 % of the things we unnecessarily buy and keep are redundant for life. But that's our lifestyle. This has become an obsession in our lives.

What We Actually Need

Biologically and mentally, human beings require very little to thrive and find deep contentment. If we strip away the noise of modern advertising, our true baseline for a highly comfortable life is incredibly modest. For basic hygiene, we simply require a bathroom blessed with a reliable supply of running water, an attached toilet, and basic essentials like soap, toothbrush, toothpaste, and fresh towels to keep ourselves clean, comfortable to maintain our dignity.

True nourishment can be sustained perfectly well by a small, functional kitchen equipped with a sink, a tap, basic utensils, simple dish detergents, and a gas stove to prepare daily meals. Mental production and personal expression require nothing more than a sturdy table to place a home computer or write down our thoughts, paired with a comfortable chair to sit on.

In terms of connectivity and leisure, a smartphone keeps us connected to the world, and if we desire, a small television set or radio can provide entertainment - if necessary? Maybe a small table fan. All of this is powered reliably by a dependable supply of electricity and lights to illuminate our evenings. Even our mobility and safe transit do not require a car, because public transportation is plentiful, and for short trips to nearby shops, a simple bicycle is more than enough to meet our needs.

That is all we truly need to live in complete and total comfort. Anything extra, especially decorative paintings, ornaments, and towering bookshelves is entirely unnecessary. In the modern era, physical books are no longer required to expand the mind, as we can effortlessly access vast oceans of information over the internet. True health and longevity are not born from material abundance. Extravagant decorations do not add a single iota to our physical well-being, let alone prolong our days. We must strive to keep life as simple as possible, refusing to clutter our days with unnecessary material burdens. These objects cannot add a single beat to our hearts, nor do they support a single dot of vital biological life.

The Final Reality: What We Leave Behind

There is a profound truth we must face about the items we accumulate: we cannot take any of them with us when we die. Our stay on this earth is brief, at most a century. A hundred years may seem like an eternity to almost everyone, but it is a mere drop in the ocean compared to the infinite journey of our immortal souls.

When our physical life ends, all the unnecessary things we spent years shopping, buying, organizing, and maintaining instantly transform into a heavy burden for the loved ones we leave behind. The extra cars, the full bookcases, the electronics, and the endless piles of cords do not bring comfort to our families. Instead, our grieving relatives are left with the stressful, exhausting task of sorting, packing, selling, or throwing away our mountains of unwanted possessions.

When we consider our final footprint, the tragedy of over-consumption becomes clear. We waste our finite life energy working to afford and maintain a crowded house, only for those very items to become trash or a logistical nightmare for others later. In the end, death proves that we never truly owned any of it; we were merely storing it, letting it rob us of our peace while we were alive, serving as a distraction from the eternal horizon our souls must eventually face.

The Solution: Finding Mental Peace Through Downsizing

To break free from this cycle, we must intentionally reverse the trend of accumulation while we are still here. The solution lies in downsizing our lives and donating our excess goods to those who can truly use them. When we clear out the heavy bookcases and find new homes for our unread books, we are not losing knowledge. Instead, we are releasing the physical weight of dust, storage furniture, and visual clutter. Donating these items shifts our focus from ownership to sharing, allowing our old belongings to enrich the community rather than crowd our rooms.

Downsizing our items creates an immediate sense of mental peace. Every object we remove means one less thing to clean, repair, organize, or buy accessories for. As our counter spaces empty and our rooms open up, our minds naturally follow suit, replacing the quiet anxiety of home maintenance with an open sense of calm.

By recognizing the add-on trap before making a purchase, we can stop the cycle of accumulation before it starts. True freedom is not found in owning multiple vehicles, filling endless bookshelves, or managing household zoos. True freedom is the ability to move lightly through the world, entirely unburdened by the heavy chains of unnecessary possessions.

Across many spiritual, philosophical, and psychological traditions, the soul is often described as that deep, inner "still small voice" that guides us, while thoughts are recognized as the non-physical, conscious experiences that distinctively separate our mental lives from our physical bodies

Our soul is the "still small voice" (a phrase originating from the biblical story of Elijah) that represents divine guidance or the highest, purest part of the human soul. It is the silent voice constantly speaking to us - even now as you read this sentence. We need to distinguish between the busy, loud chatter of the mind (the ego) and the quiet, calm intuition of the soul. The soul's voice is typically associated with peace, conscience, and deep wisdom.

Listen to that still small voice which is our soul constantly speaking to us, and invest in what that still small voice tell us - and not temporary physical investments here on earth while we still have the opportunity. The non-physical part is our soul - the dualism of our body.

Be humble and keep our lives as simple as possible

For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul (Matthew 16:26 and Mark 6:36)

For Further Reading:

The Brevity of Human Life

https://scientificlogic.blogspot.com/search?q=brevity+of+life