Sarah Hoyt recently wrote a post about decluttering her house: https://accordingtohoyt.com/2025/12/23/let-it-go/#comments
Towards the end she states, “…minimalism is a luxury belief. It only works if you’re sure you can buy it again if you need it, no matter how suddenly. “I am a minimalist and I don’t agree. I have some family members and friends who are, to my eyes, severe packrats and I see how their behavior can be wasteful and expensive. In her own article Hoyt even states, ” The house isn’t normally dirty, (there are weeks) but it is cluttered with totally random piles of stuff, to the point we can’t even figure out where things are, and sometimes have to rebuy.” For over a year since moving to their home the Hoyts have been unable to use several (most?) rooms in their home because they are filled with things*.
In my youth I liked to save things. I was from a family of modest means and economics made it so I was in no danger of having too much clutter, but I remember cherishing many positions and feeling good knowing they were in my possession. Somewhere between the age of 18 and 26 that switched. “He who owns little is little owned” felt sensible to me by my late 20s. Maybe it was the inordinate number of times I moved in those 8 years, but somewhere along the way I became a minimalist.
I sometimes wonder if the tendency towards hoarding vs. minimalism is genetic. For hundreds and thousands of years our ancestors were people who either moved about in search of food, favorable weather and shelter, or stayed put due to abundant, local resources and/or a temperate climate, or stayed put in non-temperate regions by building hardened shelters and food stores. For the “stay putters” resources were scarce, so it would make sense to hang on to most anything one had. For the nomads anything extraneous was extra weight to transport and slow the tribe down. It seems for most of us these tendencies are very deeply seated and genetic in nature. My wife and I live a bit of a compromise. She is more “packratty” than me, but I’m the odd one. On a bell curve she’d probably be in the middle between minimalist and packrat and I’d be several standard deviations along the minimalist asymptote.
*My wife and I have moved quite a few times in our marriage, even across thousands of miles. I can’t think of a move where we didn’t have 90% of the moving boxes unpacked and their contents put away within the first week. Excluding the garage, I doubt we had an unusable room within 48 hours of a move. We even had 2 major moves within a week of Christmas and not only had things unpacked, but were able to decorate the new place for the Holiday. Yet I know quite a few people who live like the Hoyts, and seem OK with it. They likely think my wife and I are odd for giving so much away.
Via Roku you can find old episodes of the Dick Cavett Show. These include his interviews with Bette Davis. She was most engaging in that setting.
THIS is how they do it….
Jim in MN posts: “After 3 straight days of ground breaking reporting by Nick, a 22 yr old YouTuber, in what is the now the biggest story in the country, today’s state’s newspapers have ZERO mention of it. This is a key part of the how the corruption works here-it gets total safety from” public exposure.
PS Mr “TJ” is a life-long escapee of Minnesota Somali-ville. Ilhan Omar’s Congressional District was captured after dispatching the long, long-time Rep. Phyllis Kahn — a Jew who was not Far Left enough anymore, but was at least ethically constrained, unlike Omar.
I think it’s her large eyes. But I wouldn’t call her hideous, just bug-eyed. A college classmate of mine had eyes like that, and although I didn’t call her hideous I admit to being skeptical of the ribald novel she was in the process of writing at only 18 years of age. I think it would be referred to as a bodice-ripper (sans historical setting) today, but I doubted she could have that much experience at her young age. And who wears a bodice, even in the sixties?
I have never thought Bette Davis was a classic beauty compared to some of her peers like Vivien Leigh, Carole Lombard, etc. But her moxie overshadowed any of her physical appearance and cast her in a very attractive light.
Rufus,
On hoarding and minimalists: my wife is not really a hoarder in that our house is overrun, but she has a very hard time getting rid of anything, even if it means going to a charity. Moving from CT to FL forced her to reduce, but she still has a closet full of shoes, winter clothes, etc that she NEVER wears or takes out. If I suggest (not her clothes!) we get rid of something we never use and is just taking up space, she gets angry and accuses me of “wanting to throw everything out!”. So, I’ve just learned to live with it. Her emotional response to getting rid of items still puzzles me after 40+ years.
I never thought Bette Davis was attractive.
* * * * *
For those whose parents (or grandparents) grew up during the Great Depression, old attitudes may have been inherited, such as “waste not want not,” and “I can’t get rid of that, I might need it some day.”
However, from wiki I discover that Jackie “What the World Needs Now Is Love” DeShannon co-wrote, then recorded the song in 1975.
How about that.
I’ve seen these videos Hanson is describing– it looks like him, it sounds closely to him– but it’s things you normally wouldn’t expect Hanson to say. It’s being generated by AI and it’s fake.
I’ve seen it with a few other well known people.
I only watch podcasts that have the verified check. It’s the only way you can be sure it’s the real person.
You could say that Meryl Streep the modern Bette Davis.
Not conventionally pretty – but arresting and intriguing..
Regarding packrats:
Even with Amazon and modern shipping, there are hobby items and tools that I cannot easily get now that I live outside the USA. So I don’t consider investing in tools to be “clutter”.
Brian E:
I’ve noticed there are lots of AI videos of Jordan Peterson saying things he never said. They only have audio, though, and a still photo of Peterson.
Leave a Reply
HTML tags allowed in your
comment: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>
Sarah Hoyt recently wrote a post about decluttering her house: https://accordingtohoyt.com/2025/12/23/let-it-go/#comments
Towards the end she states, “…minimalism is a luxury belief. It only works if you’re sure you can buy it again if you need it, no matter how suddenly. “I am a minimalist and I don’t agree. I have some family members and friends who are, to my eyes, severe packrats and I see how their behavior can be wasteful and expensive. In her own article Hoyt even states, ” The house isn’t normally dirty, (there are weeks) but it is cluttered with totally random piles of stuff, to the point we can’t even figure out where things are, and sometimes have to rebuy.” For over a year since moving to their home the Hoyts have been unable to use several (most?) rooms in their home because they are filled with things*.
In my youth I liked to save things. I was from a family of modest means and economics made it so I was in no danger of having too much clutter, but I remember cherishing many positions and feeling good knowing they were in my possession. Somewhere between the age of 18 and 26 that switched. “He who owns little is little owned” felt sensible to me by my late 20s. Maybe it was the inordinate number of times I moved in those 8 years, but somewhere along the way I became a minimalist.
I sometimes wonder if the tendency towards hoarding vs. minimalism is genetic. For hundreds and thousands of years our ancestors were people who either moved about in search of food, favorable weather and shelter, or stayed put due to abundant, local resources and/or a temperate climate, or stayed put in non-temperate regions by building hardened shelters and food stores. For the “stay putters” resources were scarce, so it would make sense to hang on to most anything one had. For the nomads anything extraneous was extra weight to transport and slow the tribe down. It seems for most of us these tendencies are very deeply seated and genetic in nature. My wife and I live a bit of a compromise. She is more “packratty” than me, but I’m the odd one. On a bell curve she’d probably be in the middle between minimalist and packrat and I’d be several standard deviations along the minimalist asymptote.
*My wife and I have moved quite a few times in our marriage, even across thousands of miles. I can’t think of a move where we didn’t have 90% of the moving boxes unpacked and their contents put away within the first week. Excluding the garage, I doubt we had an unusable room within 48 hours of a move. We even had 2 major moves within a week of Christmas and not only had things unpacked, but were able to decorate the new place for the Holiday. Yet I know quite a few people who live like the Hoyts, and seem OK with it. They likely think my wife and I are odd for giving so much away.
Via Roku you can find old episodes of the Dick Cavett Show. These include his interviews with Bette Davis. She was most engaging in that setting.
THIS is how they do it….
Jim in MN posts: “After 3 straight days of ground breaking reporting by Nick, a 22 yr old YouTuber, in what is the now the biggest story in the country, today’s state’s newspapers have ZERO mention of it. This is a key part of the how the corruption works here-it gets total safety from” public exposure.
MOAR examples from Instapundit https://instapundit.com/765210/#disqus_thread
PS Mr “TJ” is a life-long escapee of Minnesota Somali-ville. Ilhan Omar’s Congressional District was captured after dispatching the long, long-time Rep. Phyllis Kahn — a Jew who was not Far Left enough anymore, but was at least ethically constrained, unlike Omar.
I think it’s her large eyes. But I wouldn’t call her hideous, just bug-eyed. A college classmate of mine had eyes like that, and although I didn’t call her hideous I admit to being skeptical of the ribald novel she was in the process of writing at only 18 years of age. I think it would be referred to as a bodice-ripper (sans historical setting) today, but I doubted she could have that much experience at her young age. And who wears a bodice, even in the sixties?
I have never thought Bette Davis was a classic beauty compared to some of her peers like Vivien Leigh, Carole Lombard, etc. But her moxie overshadowed any of her physical appearance and cast her in a very attractive light.
Rufus,
On hoarding and minimalists: my wife is not really a hoarder in that our house is overrun, but she has a very hard time getting rid of anything, even if it means going to a charity. Moving from CT to FL forced her to reduce, but she still has a closet full of shoes, winter clothes, etc that she NEVER wears or takes out. If I suggest (not her clothes!) we get rid of something we never use and is just taking up space, she gets angry and accuses me of “wanting to throw everything out!”. So, I’ve just learned to live with it. Her emotional response to getting rid of items still puzzles me after 40+ years.
I never thought Bette Davis was attractive.
* * * * *
For those whose parents (or grandparents) grew up during the Great Depression, old attitudes may have been inherited, such as “waste not want not,” and “I can’t get rid of that, I might need it some day.”
“She’s got Bette Davis eyes.”
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=EPOIS5taqA8&list=RDEPOIS5taqA8&start_radio=1&pp=ygUac2hlJ3MgZ290IGJldHRlIGRhdmlzIGV5ZXOgBwE%3D
Re: She’s got Bette Davis eyes
om beat me to it!
Hat tip to Kim Carnes for that striking 1981 hit.
However, from wiki I discover that Jackie “What the World Needs Now Is Love” DeShannon co-wrote, then recorded the song in 1975.
How about that.
I’ve seen these videos Hanson is describing– it looks like him, it sounds closely to him– but it’s things you normally wouldn’t expect Hanson to say. It’s being generated by AI and it’s fake.
I’ve seen it with a few other well known people.
I only watch podcasts that have the verified check. It’s the only way you can be sure it’s the real person.
Victor Davis Hanson: Beware—AI Is Putting Words Into My Mouth
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NNA76LTq4ic
You could say that Meryl Streep the modern Bette Davis.
Not conventionally pretty – but arresting and intriguing..
Regarding packrats:
Even with Amazon and modern shipping, there are hobby items and tools that I cannot easily get now that I live outside the USA. So I don’t consider investing in tools to be “clutter”.
Brian E:
I’ve noticed there are lots of AI videos of Jordan Peterson saying things he never said. They only have audio, though, and a still photo of Peterson.