Minimalists and Hoarders (with Michael Easter)

Feb 10 2025

Why do we buy stuff we don't need? Maybe for the same reason that some people can't stand stuff at all. Listen as author Michael Easter speaks with EconTalk's Russ Roberts about how two seemingly opposed approaches to our possessions--minimalism and hoarding--may stem from the same impulse to cope with uncertainty. They also discuss the downsides of minimalism and how to figure out whether we're really buying the right things.

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Time	Podcast Episode Highlights
0:37	Intro. [Recording date: January 7, 2025.] Russ Roberts: Today is January 7th, 2025. I want to thank everyone who voted in the survey of your favorite episodes of 2024. I'll have the results soon. And now for today's guest, author Michael Easter. His Substack is called Two Percent. This is his third appearance on EconTalk. He was last here in October of 2023, talking about excess, moderation, and the scarcity brain. Michael, welcome back to EconTalk. Michael Easter: Thanks for having me back, Russ.
1:03	Russ Roberts: Our topic for today is based on an essay you wrote on your Substack, "Why Minimalism Doesn't Work." So, nominally, we're going to talk about minimalism, but inevitably we're going to talk about a number of related topics and maybe some unrelated topics. Let's start with the definition. What is minimalism? Michael Easter: I think minimalism is--well, I think it's a new thing in the grand scheme of time and space, I will say that. But, I think it's a desire to get rid of as much stuff as you can to create an aesthetic in the world you live in where you have less and you're really trying to pare down items to those that you think--I'll use the term from a popular minimalist--spark joy. Russ Roberts: You open the piece saying, quote: Confession: I bought something I didn't need on Black Friday--a truly fantastic wool shirt from Filson for a long thru-hike in the spring. (Narrator: "Michael already owns three wool flannels...") That's the end of the quote. Why did you buy that shirt? What do you think--when you put yourself back: it's Black Friday; you see the shirt--what were you thinking? Michael Easter: What was I thinking? That is a great question. So, yes, this was timed to Black Friday because I think during Black Friday, we--obviously, all these levers get pulled by companies to get people to buy. Right? This is, like, the biggest buying day of the year. And so, I'm cued into this. Black Friday, what do you do on Black Friday? You go on the Internet and you start looking for stuff to buy. Now, I think sometimes people will start with the idea, 'I'm going to buy gifts for my family members. I'm going to save money.' So, I do think that there are some good opportunities to save money. But, what happens when I spend a little more time online, I go, 'Oh, well, I wonder if Filson is having any sales?' And, 'Oh my gosh, this wool shirt, this is $50 off. This is an unbelievable bargain.' And, 'Oh, I happen to be doing this thru-hike, and it would be great to have a wool shirt because wool stays warm when it's wet. I'll also look kind of cool on the trail. I won't be in all the super-techy stuff. I'll look like an old school mountain man. $50 off. Yeah, let's buy it.' And so, I think really, kind of the two greatest levers to pull to get someone to buy are scarcity and urgency. And, even on the site it said, 'Oh, you want a size Large? Yeah. We only got three of those left, buddy.' And, what happens? I click buy. I mean, it's funny, because I wrote that and the shirt hadn't even landed on my doorstep yet. It was one of those where, like, you click buy and about 10 minutes later you go, 'I already have three wool shirts sitting in my closet right now. I do not need that thing.' I mean, $50 off, great. It was still expensive. You know? And so, I think that kicked off the idea that: Hey, let's write about minimalism timed to Black Friday.
4:08	Russ Roberts: There's an environmental component for some people, I think--that the smaller footprint, fewer purchases--meaning less economic activity--so that's part of the motivation. I assume part of it is a backlash against--a lot of lower prices in the American economy and elsewhere, but especially in America, the opportunity to buy manufactured goods from China; the incredible increase in the size of houses as we've gotten wealthier in America, and there's plenty of room to put stuff. So, what's a shirt? Yeah. Maybe I'll need it someday. There's many, many ways we rationalize these kind of purchases. The thrill when it's Black Friday--$50 off--and you're visualizing yourself--which they would do if they could, by the way. They would show you walking through a gorgeous landscape with people eyeing you and applauding wildly rather than just a model. We understand that appeal. It's very hard to be aware of it while you're in that moment, because it's very powerful. Michael Easter: It is very powerful. And I think--what I get into in the piece is that the fundamental questions becomes: why are we buying this thing? So, I do think we live in a time where things are cheap. There's always deals. You can't go on Amazon and look up anything without saying, 'Oh, this is'--whatever, 11% less than it was last week. This is a great time to buy. But, I think that especially in the context of a world where more and more people are working from home, and we also don't have to physically go to a store to buy something anymore, you can get bored at work. Maybe you wrote a long email and it was really taxing on your brain, and you go, 'Okay. I need a little bit of relief.' And, you go online and: Oh, there's these bargains. Right? And, I think it makes it a lot easier for people to fill time that would have been filled by some other means or deal with a sensation like boredom in a way that costs money and adds more possessions to a stockpile that people probably already have. So, when I was reporting[?] my book Scarcity Brain, I came across a stat--and there was a range of stats, so I gave this really big range--that says: The average home now contains 10,000 to 50,000 items. And so, when I read that, I go, 'Yeah, no way. That's impossible.' And then, I pause and I look at my desk. Well, we got a mat for our laptop, we got a laptop, we got a screen attached to the laptop. We got about seven individual cords going to the laptop. Not to mention, I got, like, 10 pens on this little pen mat. Right? And, you start to just look at that little space and go, 'Oh. Yeah. 10,000 to 50,000 actually seems quite reasonable when you parse them out all individually.' Russ Roberts: Well, we moved from a suburban American house in Maryland that was probably 3,300 square feet to a much smaller three bedroom apartment in Jerusalem; and, we got a feel for how much stuff we had. Because we knew there wouldn't be room for it. We didn't know where we were going to live. We didn't know how big it would be. We just assumed we'd have room for less. And, we also took it as a chance to reduce the amount of stuff we have. What's strange for me is that when I go back to America now, there's two things that I find jarring--among others. But, one is: I walk into people's houses; they are filled with stuff that's everywhere. Nobody has an empty counter. Nobody has a counter with three things on it. They all have a counter with 30 things on it. The other thing that's strange is that there's a mountain--and I'm not kidding--a mountain of packages that arrives every day in a lot of our friends' houses. They're lovely people, by the way. I'm not talking about you, if you're listening, the one that doesn't--who is nice. But, there are others who have these--they order it from Amazon every day. And, I realized, 'Oh, we used to do that all the time.' And, part of it is you say to yourself, 'Well, it's more convenient. I save travel time, actually; and money, because it's cheap.' But, the total impact is quite significant. Michael Easter: Yeah. Absolutely. I think people are definitely buying more things today. And, I do think that the pandemic kicked off more impulse buying. So, a lot of the stats say that impulse buying spiked. There became a lot higher demand for these items that I don't think people were quite as interested in, in the past. One of those reasons might be that all of a sudden people had more income because they weren't out spending. You know, for example, a case study that I love, for two reasons, is the luxury watch market. So, the luxury watch market during the pandemic had this unbelievable heyday. So, for example, if you could get a Rolex GMT [Greenwich Mean Time] from a dealer--now granted, you couldn't. But, let's say you were the one guy that was able to pull the string and get that. That watch was, say, $10,000. You could immediately flip that online for $40,000, and someone would buy it. Second part of that is: Rolex. It tells the time--the exact same as a Timex. So, why am I buying a Rolex? Well, it's because items--and I think that this is not new at all--items can give people status. And so, you don't buy a Rolex to know what time it is. You buy a Rolex so the person that you see in the world knows you bought a Rolex, and that says something about you.
10:14	Russ Roberts: But of course, during the pandemic--and we'll talk a little bit about that in a minute--but, there were a lot of things that went up in purchase volume that were not surprising. Bird feeders. People were home a lot more, they wanted to look out the window. They were stuck looking out the window because they couldn't go anywhere else. Jigsaw puzzles, flour, bread-making equipment. A lot of people started baking bread. And, much of that, by the way, I think was very beautiful. But, your point is that the pandemic illustrated--this is the craziest thing--the pandemic--hoarding--helped us understand that hoarding and minimalism are--you call it two sides of the same coin. Explain. Michael Easter: So, hoarding is you're buying and accumulating all these items and you're not getting rid of them. Okay? Minimalism is you are buying less and you are getting rid of items. Now, you have to ask: Okay, well, why would someone do that in the first place? I talked to this researcher whose name is Stephanie Preston, and she's looked at hoarding as a behavior for her entire career. She's at the University of Michigan, I believe. She's great-- Russ Roberts: She is-- Michael Easter: And, she said that both of these acts, the underlying reason why people do these two things--whether it's hoarding or whether it's minimalism--is that they give people a sense of control. So, for a hoarder, your relation to your possessions is: I need to get more and I can't get rid of things because I might need that. And that stresses you out. Well, what if something comes up in my life and I need that second mixer? What if we have a party and I need to bake a lot of stuff? I definitely need two mixers. I can't get rid of that. Minimalists, on the other hand, they find a sense of control in paring down. Because, having too much stuff, it stresses them out: If I can just get the perfect items and have the perfect low level amount of them where I'm using everything specifically--it is there for a very important reason, I'm going to have less. I'm not going to have much around my house--I'll feel so much better. And, that also gives people a sense of control and less stress. So, really, these are two sides of the exact same coin in using possessions to find a sense of control, to sort of build an identity around. But, one final point about minimalism, too, is that although the underlying sort of, the reason for it is we're going to relate to our possessions in a certain way. Well, your possessions are still possessing you because now you've built your identity around having less. We're still obsessed about our possessions here. Russ Roberts: That's a great insight. But, your point, which--or maybe it's Stephanie Preston's--it's so interesting to me, is that the pandemic, which now seems to be about--that was in the previous century, or maybe it was the 19th century? I can't remember? It was a very long time ago in human years. It was very anxiety-producing. First of all, a lot of people started to realize they were mortal. You could die. They were very anxious about not getting COVID. And, in particular, for me, at least, some of that anxiety was: When is this going to be over? When can I go back to my, quote, "normal life"? We have some of that here in Israel--quite a bit of it, actually. In fact, being here in the middle of a war, is very COVID-y in the sense that: Well, it's going to end soon, right? And then it doesn't. And, you're jarred by that. And then, you have trouble dealing with the fact that actually you have no idea when it's going to end. I think back a lot on what it must have been like to live in London--or Berlin--in World War II where, it's 1940 in London. You must think, 'Well, how much longer could this thing last?' Or the Civil War, which, 'Oh, it'll only take about a week or two.' So, after two years, you have to start to confront the reality that it's going to go a little longer maybe than we thought. And, this idea that you cope with that anxiety--I think of it here especially in the early days of the war, is a lead overcoat. You don't even know you're wearing it. Just, you're weighted down. And, one way to cope with that is: stuff. And, what's fascinating about this insight is that there's two ways to use stuff to reduce uncertainty and stress. One is to get more of it. One is to get less. And, that is not intuitive. It's, I think, a deep insight. Michael Easter: Yeah. So, I would say there was two phases of the pandemic in terms of stuff and buying things. The first phase is that it sets in and what do people do? We all go to the grocery store. We just buy anything and everything we can. And, I remember I was living in Vegas, and we go to this grocery store and we have this long list of all this stuff we're going to need, all this food. Long lists of food we're actually going to eat. And, we go in there and it is like a war zone, right? And we quickly find we're not going to be able to get any of this stuff. And, I very distinctly remember--I'm walking down an aisle with a bunch of other people, and there's a guy and he's wearing a Tyvek suit and a gas mask and, like, has his eyes covered in safety glasses, and he's got this cart that is just, like, the cans are literally falling out of it he has so many. And, I saw that and I just went, 'Oh my God, we're going to need more food.' It was just throw everything in. So, first phase is-- Russ Roberts: You're going to need a bigger cart. Michael Easter: Yeah. Yeah. So, first phase, I think, is that everyone went and bought a lot of, quote-unquote, "necessary" supplies. Toilet paper brawls break out. Canned food. And then, things sort of settle. And, what tended to happen is there were two trajectories. On one hand, like I mentioned, that just impulse buying went up. You had a lot of people buying just random items they maybe wouldn't have before. But, the second group that was interesting is that you also had this massive surge in people who were decluttering and getting rid of things and minimalizing. So, there was really interesting anecdotes from people who run secondhand stores, from people who run donation centers. They all just said, 'We've never seen this much stuff come our--we don't know what to do with it all.' It's just been this insane surge of stuff. So, you really had these two different reactions. And Stephanie Preston, who I mentioned, she thinks: Well, yeah--pandemic was a stressful time. You could deal with that stress through distracting yourself on the Internet on shopping sites. And, it feels good to buy. It feels good to click-buy. The search is--oh, it's so much fun. Looking for that one right item. Right? But then, on the other hand, you had people who got in their house and go, 'I can find a sense of control here if I can just get everything in its perfect order--if I can pare down, if my shelves are perfect, if I have only what I need.'
17:38	Russ Roberts: And, you're a hunter. Or you've been a hunter--I don't know if you still hunt. But, certainly there's a dopamine, primitive--I mean, it's an absurd thing to say, but I think it's true: Shopping is a lot like hunting. I'm sure there's been Ph.D. theses written on it. Many. But, you make another observation, which I think is really interesting, which is: people who hoard--and there's degrees of hoarding, as you talk about in your paper. It's a continuous variable. But, hoarding as a general phenomenon is pitiable. People who hoard--people feel sorry for them. There's clearly something wrong with them. They have huge stacks of things. At its extreme. A modern American house that has 50,000 items, most of those people would say, 'Oh, no, no. I'm not a hoarder.' But, they are using purchases to satisfy many times a dopamine shortage that they're trying to correct or a desire for that control. Minimalists, on the other hand, are respected, even revered. First, the environmental parts--it's considered virtuous--but also the idea of some kind of harmony with their stuff because the shelves are lined up neatly and there's not stuff everywhere. The word 'clutter' is really an interesting word. Clutter is definitely a negative word. So, decluttering is virtuous, and clutter is clearly a sign of a disordered person. I don't really believe that, but that's a common view. But, you make the point that minimalism has a downside to it that's not obvious. The two tails both have their problems. Michael Easter: Yeah. I think you're right. Culturally, we look at hoarding as this bad thing. If you're a hoarder, you're gross. And, hoarders get portrayed in these sort of reality shows where the host goes into a home and there's newspapers from 30 years piled up; and it's just gross. So, that's what we see when we think of hoarding. Now, Stephanie Preston, she did make the point that if you look at all of us in the grand scheme of time and space, we're all hoarders. People didn't really own that much up until really after the Industrial Revolution. And I think it's really kicked off since the Internet came into our lives. But, minimalists, on the other hand, if you watch the reality shows around minimalism--oh man, it's like a religious experience. Everything is clean and perfect, and that gets really propped up as next to godliness almost. For example, I was on a podcast that was about minimalism. They were talking to me about Scarcity Brain, and even the way it was filmed--I mean, I had this black background and light on my face, and it was just, like, the whole aesthetic. I'm like, 'Oh man, I look like a cult leader or something. This is great.' But, I do think one of the other downsides of minimalism is that--and this was especially true after the Magic Art of Tidying Up--was that the name of the book? Russ Roberts: I don't know but I know what you're talking about and I bet a few of our listeners do. First, I want to apologize that we don't have the production values you're used to, Michael. I apologize for that. You've been spoiled. Go ahead. Michael Easter: You can do some after-effects, Russ. Russ Roberts: Maybe. Michael Easter: It'll be good. So, one of the things that people found is once they did start to really minimize, they started throwing stuff out that they two weeks later go, 'Oh, wait, I actually needed that.' Like, to a certain extent, we have our tools for a reason. So, one of the things that I write about in my newsletter--and I had this in the book Scarcity Brain, too--is: how do you frame purchases? Now, my way is: I think of things as gear, not stuff. So, by putting it through that sort of framework--works for me. I can think: 'Okay, gear is an item that I am using to achieve some higher purpose. It's going to help me do my job better. It's going to get me out in the world and give me these experiences that elevate my life as a whole.' Whereas, stuff is, 'Here's this thing I have that I'm not really using for the sake of it. It doesn't really get used. It felt good as I was searching for it, sure, but once I got it, it was kind of: the thrill is gone. It didn't add to my life after the fact using it.'
22:30	Russ Roberts: But, I derailed you. I apologize about my bad joke about production values. I think what's interesting about the revering of minimalism or the religious component of it--I would call it spiritual, maybe is a better word--is that: I'm sure there's some people who do it for all kinds of reasons that are admirable. But, the psychological reason that Stephanie Preston is talking about and that we're talking about, of control--it suggests that your urge to be minimalist is a way of covering up an underlying problem. And, if you're not careful, you will blind yourself to that challenge. And, the real challenge is not accumulation: it's accepting that life is unpredictable and you've got to live with uncertainty. Michael Easter: Yeah. Yeah. Spot on. I do think that--I mean, she would argue, and I think this is true--that life is complicated. It's really complex. It comes with a lot of tough feelings. And, having to ask these bigger underlying questions is tough. And, people find ways to deal with that through a variety of ways. Some people buy a bunch of stuff. I live in Las Vegas: some people gamble, some people drink. But, some people, they find the control and a little bit of certainty in that uncertainty by minimizing--by finding the perfect number of items and getting everything in their house orderly. And this was actually--as I was reporting this, it was really interesting for me because I would say that, in terms of a spectrum, my wife and I are on different sides. I'm a little more likely to have stuff out around the house; and stuff will be out, a little more disorganized. And, my wife keeps our home like a museum. If I leave something out, it's, like, 'Why are you leaving this thing out? What are you doing?' And, my reaction is, 'What do you care? It's just sitting there. It's not dirty, you know.' But, for her, she goes, 'No, I get stressed out when there is stuff all over the house. It just stresses me out.' And so, when I spoke to Stephanie Preston, it was this--like, a little bit of light bulb went off. Like, 'Oh. Okay. I see. I feel like I might need something at some point, so let's keep it out. I have all these different reasons. But, for my wife, that's like a panic attack: We don't want all this crap all over the house.' And so, it helped me understand some of these underlying reasons we behave the way we do with possessions. Russ Roberts: So, I probably have a variety of different clutter problems. You can't see my desk: my main desk is over there and it doesn't look so good. I think I have an issue with books. It's interesting. I like to leave my books out, and I like to read multiple books at a time, and I like to have books I'm hoping to read soon out as well. And I defend myself, perhaps irrationally, by saying if I put them away, I won't see them and then I'll forget about them. And, that creates anxiety for me, by the way. And so, what I'm going to do--and the obvious solution to that is, well, you could just have a dedicated shelf called 'books I'm going to read soon.' And, there's something about that that doesn't work for me. I like to see them out, either on the coffee table--I pile them up a little bit. Not too high--not scary high--on the arms of the couch. And, that way they're there for me. They're ready. I can get right at them whenever I need to. And, I suspect maybe people have different things that are like that. Michael Easter: Yeah. I definitely agree. And I think, in terms of how it relates to these ideas of having a lot of stuff or keeping a low amount of stuff is: if you have more items in theory--so I think evolutionarily it probably made sense to have more tools rather than less for most of time. If you have more tools, tools can help you survive. You might need an extra bow or spear, whatever it might be. So, I think that we're wired to accumulate more rather than less in the grand scheme of time and space, because that gives us certainty: Okay, I can use this thing to survive. Now, applied to today I think that a lot of people still feel that where it's like, well, don't throw that thing away because you might need it. And, if something comes up--there's this underlying uncertainty--well, that could help you. Bu, I also think that the flip side of that is having too much can also be constraining. And so, some people maybe feel more like they can cope with uncertainty if they're more free. So, I'll give you a great example of this. My first boss, when I was in the magazine industry, one of his first pieces of advice was: never keep more items in your desk than you can fit into a single box. Because if you get canned, you don't want to have to be coming back into this office to get a bunch of stuff. So, literally, this guy-- Russ Roberts: That is so heartwarming. That is so heartwarming. Michael Easter: Well, let me tell you what, that's a man who works in journalism in the modern times right there. So, his whole thing was his office was totally Spartan, and it was really just for that day so he could feel like, 'Okay. When the day comes, I just pack my stuff and I'm out of here.' That just gave him relief. If he had too much stuff in the office, it would be: I'm going to have to make multiple trips; everyone's going to see me. But, I think that's kind of a metaphor for a lot of people who get really down the minimalism rabbit hole: 'If I have little stuff, I can go at any time, and I'm good to go.'
28:34	Russ Roberts: What's fascinating about this moment is we're rich enough to be minimalist. Right? You alluded to this before implicitly: Minimalism is the essence of human history. It's true we'd like to have a lot of tools, but most of the time we couldn't. We would have been thrilled to have a closet full of clothes, but we didn't. We had a shirt, a pair of pants, one pair of shoes would be like, in some parts of--many, many, many parts of human history, and even sadly, some people today, that's a fabulous achievement. That people might have 30 or 40 would be literally unimaginable. And so, in a way, clutter, hoarding, and so on are a first world problem. And, minimalism is an attempt to--I don't know what you'd call it, but I think it's definitely a form of control. When you're talking about your boss, I was thinking about your desk in that job; and you probably had a desk and have a desk like this at home--I'm sure many listeners do--it's where you keep all your cords. Do you have a drawer like that? Michael Easter: Yeah. Russ Roberts: Right. There's charging cords in there, connecting cords. They're totally useless. Now you say to yourself, like you said, 'I might need some of these one day.' First of all, there's 80 of them in there, and they're all tangled together in a hopeless way. So, if you actually need one--I realized at one point, I'm just going to buy a new one. The idea that I'm going to find it in there: I'm going to spend an hour going through there? That's the example again in my life where I can feel that, but I think that's extremely common. Michael Easter: Oh yeah, absolutely. It's funny you say that because I had to plug something in with a strange cord the other day, and I keep all my cords in this case, and it's just this rat's nest. This big ball. It took me at least 10 minutes to go, 'Is this the end for the one?' And then, you're detangling it. Yeah. To your point, though, one fun little stat that I came across is that Martha Washington--this is the First Lady--she's got to be wealthy. She owned 15 outfits. The average person today owns more than 105 pieces of clothes in their closet. Now, if you watch something like any of the Housewife franchises [TV reality series], you will know they own 500 different items of clothes. And, what's interesting, too, is that when you look at how often people wear stuff--like, half of the stuff in that closet, people only wear once a year. If that. And, we tend to return to wearing the same things over and over and over, but we have all these different clothes because you might wear that one day. I mean, if I went in my closet right now, I could tell you there's items in there that I haven't worn in two years, but I go, 'Well, it was kind of nice. It was expensive. Might as well just keep it in here.' So, I think that that has really been a big change in time where it really wasn't until the 20th century that people started just accumulating items. And, I think it started with the rich. The rich could use that as a flex[?] to go, 'Hey, I have money. Look, I'm wearing something different than I did yesterday. Look at that.' And, people go, 'Oh, my God. Wow. That person must have piles of money.' And then, over time, that started to become the norm: where, as prices went down, everyone could start to do that. And then, I think that what tends to happen is that once that becomes the norm, you have a pushback. So, now the wealthy have to go, 'Well, what the hell do we do now? They're wearing a different outfit every day, too.' And then, you get a tip into minimalism. Because I will say, if you look at minimalism, it does tend to be people who are in wealthier economic classes that get into it. And, the way that it is often played out in terms of how it functions: It's not just removing things. It's also buying the right things. And so, you'll go to minimalism sites and it's: you only need one pen, and the pen you should have is this beautiful, sleek, minimalist--and by the way, it's $79. So, that becomes its sort of own--it's just this cycle of: Okay, the wealthy adopt this thing, but now everyone can do it; so now how do we set ourselves apart status-wise with our items? So, now we've got to figure out a new way. And, it's kind of like the cycle continues over time. Russ Roberts: Well, the status thing is a nice insight. A friend of mine observed once that the number of keys you carry is inversely related to your wealth and status. So, the janitor has got this ring with 70, 80, a hundred keys. Right? The richest people have no keys. It's not like they have fewer: they have none. They have a doorman at their house. They never have to lock their house. They never have to get into their house because they have 24-hour door service. And, all of a sudden having a key must have been a big deal at some point in human history. It's, like: I have a door--I have a house with a door, starters. Secondly, it's so secure: I can close it and no one else can come in. That was a huge breakthrough in human well-being. But after a while, everybody had one, like you said. So, actually it goes the other way. And, what you want to show is you have fewer keys; it's no big deal. Michael Easter: Yeah. And with how inexpensive things have become relatively--I think that's a good thing overall. Russ Roberts: Absolutely. For sure. Michael Easter: More people have more access to things. Another thing that I came upon that was fascinating is: it used to take--people who would make nails, I don't know if there's a special word to describe that job. But, people who would make construction nails, it would take about 15 minutes to make a nail. Well, now, modern machines can make 60 nails in about one minute. Right? And so, nails were so in demand and so expensive that there used to be arsonists who would go around burning buildings so they could then steal the nails. And now it's, like, I can go online to homedepot.com and buy a hundred of them for probably, like, five bucks. It's just the way that items have--we have so much more, and it's also much cheaper. Which is great in the grand scheme of time and space, but I do think it can lead to some interesting side-effects in terms of now we just buy and buy and buy because it's much easier to do so. And that can come with some downsides.
35:31	Russ Roberts: I want to come back to this underlying issue of control. Recognizing it is a huge step forward. Recognizing the things you do in your life so that you can feel like you're in control is the beginning of wisdom, of making some progress. So, if you are a hoarder or a minimalist and this strikes you as--that these observations that we've been making hit home, that's a chance for you to start thinking about maybe there's another way I can cope with this. There are many ways to cope with it. There's meditation, there's religion, there's therapy, there's reading a good book, there's drinking a nice cup of tea and having a ritual around it. There's many, many ways to cope with the fact that life is sometimes hard to deal with because it's uncertain. But, I think these insights about that we use our stuff as a way to do that--it's an innovative thought for many people, I suspect. Michael Easter: Yeah. And, I think when it comes to the uncertainty and control thing--I mean, I have various things that I do to try and gain control. But I think something that I've learned over time through a lot of my reporting, which I go into a lot of different countries, not always places that are friendly or a lot of places that are off the grid. I've also discovered that if I'm in complete control, it's not as interesting. What is an adventure but I don't know what's going to happen, but I'm going to walk into this thing no matter what? And, that's what ultimately makes life interesting, is ceding control and being willing to roll with the punches and figure things out. So, my writing, I have this motto I always tell myself: 'No problem? No story.' I'm there to get a story. And, if I show up to a country and the fixer has figured everything out perfectly for me--I get from point A to B perfectly, everything goes great--yeah, I get my information, but it's not that interesting of a story. I need to be out of control and have things go a little bit off the rails, be a little bit unpredictable. I need to cede control and just go with it. And, 'Oh, it turns out the fixer was totally full of it. Well, that's kind of funny,' because now I have to adapt to the circumstances and that ultimately leads to having stories. If we're talking right now about the times I've been in airports, I don't remember the times where I showed up super-early. I remember the times where, oh, they changed my gate and I had to run across the airport because I was at the wrong gate: I didn't get the update. And then, I sat down in my chair and I was sweaty, and this old woman next to me thought I was a drug addict. It's just like the craziness and the unpredictability is ultimately, I think, the times that we remember. So, remembering that there's always a little bit of an opportunity and a chance to learn and get a story out of being okay with ceding control sometimes, even though it's uncomfortable. Russ Roberts: You are a journalist so getting a story is important professionally. But of course, in life, stories are often a reward for many, many things we go through, good and bad. Now, in your book, The Comfort Crisis, you talk about the importance of getting out into the real world, the physical world, doing physically demanding things. You talk about challenges that may be insurmountable but won't kill you if you try to surmount them. Which is, Japanese word is? Michael Easter: Misogi. [Pronounced with a hard 'g' as in the word 'give.'--Econlib ed.] Russ Roberts: Misogi. And, I'm curious in your--you've done a bunch. I think you did one recently, you wrote about it. Some of that is just the overcoming of challenge, hardship, struggle. You're tired, you keep going. That can be very rewarding. In your experience though, how much of it is that adventure part, that something happened unexpected that was later memorable? Michael Easter: I think that's a huge driver for me, personally. And, I'll say I also see it in others. So, I think one of the reasons that people tend to find nature so rewarding and fulfilling in one way is that it's very unpredictable. You can't control everything. You're exposed to the elements. You can't control the weather. You don't know if you might come upon some wildlife, you don't know--does the trail just keep climbing? Do I just have to keep hiking upward? Like, the other day I was out in the desert--and I live near the desert in Las Vegas--and doing my thing--walking, hiking--and I hear this little rustle. And, I look over and there's these two coyotes, and they're like walking right past me, 10 feet away. And, they stop--di, di, di--and they look at me and I look at them, just kind of nod, and they go on their way. I'm going to remember those coyotes for the rest of my life. It was this totally unpredictable thing that just happened to insert itself. And, I'm always going to remember it because I got out in the real world and things happen out there. And, I see it in others. I did this misogi event in Costa Rica with a group of people. We took them out and led them on a misogi. And, the big value proposition is we spend a couple of days talking about philosophy, theory, doing some training, and then we have this big event on Day Three. And, we didn't tell them anything. We did not tell them a thing. And, we had this guy who was this--he's a doctor. He went to Hopkins [Johns Hopkins University]. Did a lot of stuff in government policy. Like, this guy is dialed. And, he just gets to the start of it. And, I go, 'Okay. We're going to start hiking.' And he grabs me. He goes, 'How far are we going to hike? When is it going to be--?' And I go, 'Bobby, you'll find out.' So, putting people in the scenario where there is some uncertainty--you just have to learn to roll with it. By the time we got to the end, that guy goes, 'I've never had to deal with that level of uncertainty. And, along the way, I learned so much about how I always want to control every little thing. And I literally just had to give up.' And, it got to the end and he was, like, 'That was just so insightful for me that it's kind of this metaphor for life.' Like, you really can't control anything at the end of the day. Although we try, we focus on these little things that we think can give us a sense of control, but the reality is, is it's a little bit for nothing in the end. And, being willing to roll with those punches and just see where life goes, that makes life interesting.
42:36	Russ Roberts: Well, since I've been confessing some of my neuroses, I'm going to add one now, which you'll find interesting along those lines. When we go hiking--when my wife and I go hiking--she's very comfortable with: 'Well, we'll find the trail. I think it's over there. I'm not sure where the turn is.' I've got my phone out. Now, I'm not on the Internet doing shopping. I'm not checking my email. I'm not on Twitter. I've got all trails going, and I know exactly where I am. And not only do I know how far we have to go, but I know how much elevation gain we're going to make. And, I know when we've gone through the worst of that or the most challenging of it. And, I realize now--this is when we were on a hike last week--this is deeply comforting to me in a really embarrassing way. And I'm going to try to use less of that; and I think it would be good for me. I'm going to give it a go. Of course, you could argue you've got to have some control somewhere in your life. So, that's my little crutch; is it really that bad? But, I'm going to try to grow. I like that idea. It's beautiful. Michael Easter: Yeah. I'll give you one that I've practiced similar to yours. My wife and I like to go out to restaurants. Las Vegas is an amazing food city. And, so if I'm looking for a restaurant, what do I do? It's: I go on Yelp. I got to read all the reviews. I got to do this. We make a reservation before I go. I got to read the menu. I'm going to look at photos. That is no longer a new experience. I mean, it's like I know exactly what I'm going to get. I sit down and I already--they give me the menu and I pretend to read it, but I'm, like, 'I already know I'm getting a pork chop. Mike225 on Yelp said it was the greatest thing he'd ever eaten in his life. I got to listen to Mike.' And so, I think one thing that we've experimented with is my wife and I will just kind of drive aimlessly in Las Vegas; and we'll see a restaurant and go, 'How about that one?' We don't read any reviews. We don't know anything. We don't know what to expect. We don't know what's on the menu. And, it's really fun. It's really fun. I will say we've had some bad meals, but we've also discovered just some absolute gems that would have been overlooked by the algorithms. Because when you're looking at, like, a Yelp page, everyone who goes on there wants different things out of the restaurant. Some people are going to value expedient service. Some people are going to want slow service. There's a million different things people value; and it all gets tunneled into this five stars, whatever--one through five stars--average. And I think that misses what you actually want out of the experience. Like, you're never going to figure out what you're going to get out of the experience. So, I think just throwing in different ways to not have everything perfectly planned, especially if it's something safe. If I'm going on another expedition into Alaska, I'm not going to go haphazard into that. But, in everyday life, it can be fun to just find adventure and sense of exploration through the everyday by not having everything perfectly calculated, oftentimes through your phone and through the Internet. Russ Roberts: So, a friend of mine is telling me about this three-star Michelin restaurant, which I can't eat in because I keep kosher. But, I look up the website and it gets 4.5 stars out of five. And I'm thinking, 'That's insane: 4.5? It's such a low score.' And, a meal there--I can't remember what it is: about, this is in the ballpark--a meal there might be a $500 experience for one person. So, imagine: you take your wife or your buddy and you go have a thousand-dollar evening. And it's just great. It's not extraordinary: it's merely just great. So, you give it to four stars instead of five. It's the best meal you've ever eaten. But, your expectations were: It's a Michelin three-star, and you're spending a thousand bucks; and it was just really, really good. And so, you have a terrible evening. Which is insane. And so, what I love about your restaurant strategy is, like, saying: so much of happiness in life is expectations and failure to meet them. So, I think for food--and it's true for movies. Some of my kids--maybe all of them--they don't watch trailers. They feel that that gives away too much of the plot. But, the other part I think they feel is that: I want to go into the movie knowing nothing about it. I don't want to know that everyone loved it. And, my kids will watch--by the way, they're adults. They'll watch movies that I won't watch. And they enjoy them, by the way. I won't watch them because they're awful in my mind. I look at them--bad or mediocre reviews. But, they're in there. Like you said: maybe the service wasn't so great, but the food was extraordinary, or vice versa. Maybe the food was just okay. But, there's something about the decor that was soothing. And that number of stars is totally misleading. But, the idea that, 'Oh my gosh, I don't want to waste a minute. I never want to have a dinner that's just okay. It should all be extraordinary,' forgetting the fact that setting up that expectation means often you're just going to be disappointed. So, I love this idea of creating more surprise in your life. It's really nice. Michael Easter: Yeah. And, you're absolutely right about expectations. It's, like, if I say, 'Hey, Russ, I happened to win the lottery. I'm going to give you a million bucks.' Now, that seems great. Right? Now, if you were expecting me to give you two million bucks, you'd go, 'Oh, really?' Russ Roberts: That's it? Michael Easter: 'Only a million?' If you were expecting me to give you nothing--if it was unexpected or you were expecting a hundred thousand dollars--all of a sudden, that's great. So, when we enter an experience with expectations, if it really exceeds our expectations, great. That was a wonderful experience. But if it falls below them, as in the case of the Michelin star--which, that sets a really high bar: that's a hard one to live up to--then that's going to change things. And, I think that's why there's this idea of hidden gems. Russ Roberts: Yeah. It's true. Michael Easter: Hidden gem. Like, the implication is: this is going to be okay. You go in thinking it's going to be okay and it turns out it was awesome. And, that's why it's so valuable. Russ Roberts: Of course, it's all separate neurosis we haven't touched, which is: pre-internet: a lot of people found the hole-in-the-wall place that nobody knew about, and they were the first ones to find out about it. They gained prestige and cachet because they knew the really good, authentic fill-in-the-blank place. And, those days are kind of over. But not for you. You recreate it by going to a place you've never eaten before with no expectations.
49:37	Russ Roberts: So, there's one rule for acquiring things or getting rid of things you already have, which I suspect--I'm pretty sure its from that book you mentioned that we're going to try to get exactly right. But, I think her rule is: if it gives you joy, keep it. But, if it doesn't give you joy, give it away, sell it, throw it away, whatever it is. And, I'm thinking--it's interesting. But, I really don't want most of my stuff to be related to joy. I want to find my joy in human beings, in beauty, in art, in a novel thought, a beautiful landscape. So, I think that's the wrong standard, personally. Maybe I'm misunderstanding it. But you have a different of rules for how to figure out whether to buy something or not and I really like that so go ahead. Michael Easter: Yeah. So, my four rules, if I'm going to make a purchase are--the first thing I've written them down so I don't forget. One is: Why am I buying this? So, you go on the Internet, you look up a thing, you go, 'Okay. Why am I buying this? What's the answer to that?' Number two: Is it possible that I am bored or I am stressed? Because, we know that a lot of purchases come from: I'm just sitting around, I don't have anything to do. I was on Instagram. I got fed this perfectly targeted ad for me. You're fulfilling boredom by making that purchase. Or you could just be stressed. And, this is a way to--that search that we talked about like hunting online for goods can help relieve stress. We know that. Number three: What do I intend to accomplish with this item? Okay. What am I actually going to do with it? And then, four: Do I already own something that can do this? So, in the case--to bring it back to the beginning--in the case of my Filson shirt, when I run it through that algorithm, I go, 'Okay. Thank God for online returns.' And, it is happily back at the Filson warehouse. With tags. I didn't even put it on. It was just, like, boom. It's like I hit it back with a tennis racket. Russ Roberts: And, does that work for you? It's good for your article, and I love the idea of it. Do you find yourself actually using it, or does it just sound good? Michael Easter: Except on Black Friday when all of a sudden there's the drop in price and: 'Michael, there's only three left in large.' Yeah. It's one of those things, it's like all rules in life. It's like they work when we remember them. I found it to be useful when I remember, and I'm not perfect. I make purchases that I later go, 'Why'd you buy that?' But, I think it's definitely saved me some purchases that I didn't need. And, I even think another good thing is just I found inserting time is very valuable. Basically, as a general rule, I think the faster you can do a rewarding behavior, the more likely you are to do that rewarding behavior. And, we can buy faster than ever now. So, simply, if you see something online going, okay, I'm going to put it in the cart and I'm going to wait 72 hours, I think most people will find: Why was I even thinking of buying? I didn't need that. And then, you don't end up buying that. And, I think that can save a lot of dollars and headaches. Russ Roberts: And, just one last closing--a neurosis of mine. Most of my life, I don't think I have a problem with over-buying. I have a few weaknesses, small weaknesses. I really like backpacks and suitcases and things like that. Things to carry things in, which I know you can relate to as a rucker. But, books--I'm going to make an exception for it. Just like I like the books out--for a long time in my life, I've never said no to a book, and part of it is what you made fun of earlier, but in my case, I hope it's actually the case that, yeah, I might need that someday. Even in today's world where we have so much access to online information, my library is a deep source of comfort for me. And, maybe we all have something like that in our lives that we need to hoard a little bit of. Michael Easter: Yeah. Yeah. Pick your battles. It's like if it's something really is going to bring you joy and you realize it's a little bit irrational, but you're okay with that just because, oh, man, you love it. It seems good to me. It's like in your book, Wild Problems. There's not a clear answer to any of this. It's having to figure things out yourself. Russ Roberts: Yeah. My guest today has been Michael Easter. Michael, thanks for being part of EconTalk. Michael Easter: Thank you.

Time

Podcast Episode Highlights

0:37

Intro. [Recording date: January 7, 2025.]

Russ Roberts: Today is January 7th, 2025. I want to thank everyone who voted in the survey of your favorite episodes of 2024. I'll have the results soon.

And now for today's guest, author Michael Easter. His Substack is called Two Percent. This is his third appearance on EconTalk. He was last here in October of 2023, talking about excess, moderation, and the scarcity brain. Michael, welcome back to EconTalk.

Michael Easter: Thanks for having me back, Russ.

1:03

Russ Roberts: Our topic for today is based on an essay you wrote on your Substack, "Why Minimalism Doesn't Work." So, nominally, we're going to talk about minimalism, but inevitably we're going to talk about a number of related topics and maybe some unrelated topics.

Let's start with the definition. What is minimalism?

Michael Easter: I think minimalism is--well, I think it's a new thing in the grand scheme of time and space, I will say that. But, I think it's a desire to get rid of as much stuff as you can to create an aesthetic in the world you live in where you have less and you're really trying to pare down items to those that you think--I'll use the term from a popular minimalist--spark joy.

Russ Roberts: You open the piece saying, quote:

Confession: I bought something I didn't need on Black Friday--a truly fantastic wool shirt from Filson for a long thru-hike in the spring. (Narrator: "Michael already owns three wool flannels...")

That's the end of the quote. Why did you buy that shirt? What do you think--when you put yourself back: it's Black Friday; you see the shirt--what were you thinking?

Michael Easter: What was I thinking? That is a great question. So, yes, this was timed to Black Friday because I think during Black Friday, we--obviously, all these levers get pulled by companies to get people to buy. Right? This is, like, the biggest buying day of the year. And so, I'm cued into this. Black Friday, what do you do on Black Friday? You go on the Internet and you start looking for stuff to buy.

Now, I think sometimes people will start with the idea, 'I'm going to buy gifts for my family members. I'm going to save money.' So, I do think that there are some good opportunities to save money.

But, what happens when I spend a little more time online, I go, 'Oh, well, I wonder if Filson is having any sales?' And, 'Oh my gosh, this wool shirt, this is $50 off. This is an unbelievable bargain.' And, 'Oh, I happen to be doing this thru-hike, and it would be great to have a wool shirt because wool stays warm when it's wet. I'll also look kind of cool on the trail. I won't be in all the super-techy stuff. I'll look like an old school mountain man. $50 off. Yeah, let's buy it.'

And so, I think really, kind of the two greatest levers to pull to get someone to buy are scarcity and urgency.

And, even on the site it said, 'Oh, you want a size Large? Yeah. We only got three of those left, buddy.' And, what happens? I click buy.

I mean, it's funny, because I wrote that and the shirt hadn't even landed on my doorstep yet. It was one of those where, like, you click buy and about 10 minutes later you go, 'I already have three wool shirts sitting in my closet right now. I do not need that thing.' I mean, $50 off, great. It was still expensive. You know?

And so, I think that kicked off the idea that: Hey, let's write about minimalism timed to Black Friday.

4:08

Russ Roberts: There's an environmental component for some people, I think--that the smaller footprint, fewer purchases--meaning less economic activity--so that's part of the motivation. I assume part of it is a backlash against--a lot of lower prices in the American economy and elsewhere, but especially in America, the opportunity to buy manufactured goods from China; the incredible increase in the size of houses as we've gotten wealthier in America, and there's plenty of room to put stuff. So, what's a shirt? Yeah. Maybe I'll need it someday. There's many, many ways we rationalize these kind of purchases.

The thrill when it's Black Friday--$50 off--and you're visualizing yourself--which they would do if they could, by the way. They would show you walking through a gorgeous landscape with people eyeing you and applauding wildly rather than just a model. We understand that appeal. It's very hard to be aware of it while you're in that moment, because it's very powerful.

Michael Easter: It is very powerful.

And I think--what I get into in the piece is that the fundamental questions becomes: why are we buying this thing? So, I do think we live in a time where things are cheap. There's always deals. You can't go on Amazon and look up anything without saying, 'Oh, this is'--whatever, 11% less than it was last week. This is a great time to buy.

But, I think that especially in the context of a world where more and more people are working from home, and we also don't have to physically go to a store to buy something anymore, you can get bored at work. Maybe you wrote a long email and it was really taxing on your brain, and you go, 'Okay. I need a little bit of relief.' And, you go online and: Oh, there's these bargains. Right? And, I think it makes it a lot easier for people to fill time that would have been filled by some other means or deal with a sensation like boredom in a way that costs money and adds more possessions to a stockpile that people probably already have.

So, when I was reporting[?] my book Scarcity Brain, I came across a stat--and there was a range of stats, so I gave this really big range--that says: The average home now contains 10,000 to 50,000 items. And so, when I read that, I go, 'Yeah, no way. That's impossible.' And then, I pause and I look at my desk. Well, we got a mat for our laptop, we got a laptop, we got a screen attached to the laptop. We got about seven individual cords going to the laptop. Not to mention, I got, like, 10 pens on this little pen mat. Right? And, you start to just look at that little space and go, 'Oh. Yeah. 10,000 to 50,000 actually seems quite reasonable when you parse them out all individually.'

Russ Roberts: Well, we moved from a suburban American house in Maryland that was probably 3,300 square feet to a much smaller three bedroom apartment in Jerusalem; and, we got a feel for how much stuff we had. Because we knew there wouldn't be room for it. We didn't know where we were going to live. We didn't know how big it would be. We just assumed we'd have room for less. And, we also took it as a chance to reduce the amount of stuff we have.

What's strange for me is that when I go back to America now, there's two things that I find jarring--among others. But, one is: I walk into people's houses; they are filled with stuff that's everywhere. Nobody has an empty counter. Nobody has a counter with three things on it. They all have a counter with 30 things on it.

The other thing that's strange is that there's a mountain--and I'm not kidding--a mountain of packages that arrives every day in a lot of our friends' houses. They're lovely people, by the way. I'm not talking about you, if you're listening, the one that doesn't--who is nice. But, there are others who have these--they order it from Amazon every day.

And, I realized, 'Oh, we used to do that all the time.' And, part of it is you say to yourself, 'Well, it's more convenient. I save travel time, actually; and money, because it's cheap.' But, the total impact is quite significant.

Michael Easter: Yeah. Absolutely. I think people are definitely buying more things today. And, I do think that the pandemic kicked off more impulse buying.

So, a lot of the stats say that impulse buying spiked. There became a lot higher demand for these items that I don't think people were quite as interested in, in the past. One of those reasons might be that all of a sudden people had more income because they weren't out spending.

You know, for example, a case study that I love, for two reasons, is the luxury watch market. So, the luxury watch market during the pandemic had this unbelievable heyday. So, for example, if you could get a Rolex GMT [Greenwich Mean Time] from a dealer--now granted, you couldn't. But, let's say you were the one guy that was able to pull the string and get that. That watch was, say, $10,000. You could immediately flip that online for $40,000, and someone would buy it. Second part of that is: Rolex. It tells the time--the exact same as a Timex. So, why am I buying a Rolex? Well, it's because items--and I think that this is not new at all--items can give people status. And so, you don't buy a Rolex to know what time it is. You buy a Rolex so the person that you see in the world knows you bought a Rolex, and that says something about you.

10:14

Russ Roberts: But of course, during the pandemic--and we'll talk a little bit about that in a minute--but, there were a lot of things that went up in purchase volume that were not surprising. Bird feeders. People were home a lot more, they wanted to look out the window. They were stuck looking out the window because they couldn't go anywhere else. Jigsaw puzzles, flour, bread-making equipment. A lot of people started baking bread. And, much of that, by the way, I think was very beautiful.

But, your point is that the pandemic illustrated--this is the craziest thing--the pandemic--hoarding--helped us understand that hoarding and minimalism are--you call it two sides of the same coin. Explain.

Michael Easter: So, hoarding is you're buying and accumulating all these items and you're not getting rid of them. Okay? Minimalism is you are buying less and you are getting rid of items.

Now, you have to ask: Okay, well, why would someone do that in the first place? I talked to this researcher whose name is Stephanie Preston, and she's looked at hoarding as a behavior for her entire career. She's at the University of Michigan, I believe. She's great--

Russ Roberts: She is--

Michael Easter: And, she said that both of these acts, the underlying reason why people do these two things--whether it's hoarding or whether it's minimalism--is that they give people a sense of control.

So, for a hoarder, your relation to your possessions is: I need to get more and I can't get rid of things because I might need that. And that stresses you out. Well, what if something comes up in my life and I need that second mixer? What if we have a party and I need to bake a lot of stuff? I definitely need two mixers. I can't get rid of that.

Minimalists, on the other hand, they find a sense of control in paring down. Because, having too much stuff, it stresses them out: If I can just get the perfect items and have the perfect low level amount of them where I'm using everything specifically--it is there for a very important reason, I'm going to have less. I'm not going to have much around my house--I'll feel so much better. And, that also gives people a sense of control and less stress.

So, really, these are two sides of the exact same coin in using possessions to find a sense of control, to sort of build an identity around.

But, one final point about minimalism, too, is that although the underlying sort of, the reason for it is we're going to relate to our possessions in a certain way. Well, your possessions are still possessing you because now you've built your identity around having less. We're still obsessed about our possessions here.

Russ Roberts: That's a great insight. But, your point, which--or maybe it's Stephanie Preston's--it's so interesting to me, is that the pandemic, which now seems to be about--that was in the previous century, or maybe it was the 19th century? I can't remember? It was a very long time ago in human years. It was very anxiety-producing. First of all, a lot of people started to realize they were mortal. You could die. They were very anxious about not getting COVID. And, in particular, for me, at least, some of that anxiety was: When is this going to be over? When can I go back to my, quote, "normal life"?

We have some of that here in Israel--quite a bit of it, actually. In fact, being here in the middle of a war, is very COVID-y in the sense that: Well, it's going to end soon, right? And then it doesn't. And, you're jarred by that. And then, you have trouble dealing with the fact that actually you have no idea when it's going to end.

I think back a lot on what it must have been like to live in London--or Berlin--in World War II where, it's 1940 in London. You must think, 'Well, how much longer could this thing last?' Or the Civil War, which, 'Oh, it'll only take about a week or two.' So, after two years, you have to start to confront the reality that it's going to go a little longer maybe than we thought.

And, this idea that you cope with that anxiety--I think of it here especially in the early days of the war, is a lead overcoat. You don't even know you're wearing it. Just, you're weighted down.

And, one way to cope with that is: stuff.

And, what's fascinating about this insight is that there's two ways to use stuff to reduce uncertainty and stress. One is to get more of it. One is to get less. And, that is not intuitive. It's, I think, a deep insight.

Michael Easter: Yeah. So, I would say there was two phases of the pandemic in terms of stuff and buying things. The first phase is that it sets in and what do people do? We all go to the grocery store. We just buy anything and everything we can. And, I remember I was living in Vegas, and we go to this grocery store and we have this long list of all this stuff we're going to need, all this food. Long lists of food we're actually going to eat. And, we go in there and it is like a war zone, right? And we quickly find we're not going to be able to get any of this stuff. And, I very distinctly remember--I'm walking down an aisle with a bunch of other people, and there's a guy and he's wearing a Tyvek suit and a gas mask and, like, has his eyes covered in safety glasses, and he's got this cart that is just, like, the cans are literally falling out of it he has so many. And, I saw that and I just went, 'Oh my God, we're going to need more food.' It was just throw everything in. So, first phase is--

Russ Roberts: You're going to need a bigger cart.

Michael Easter: Yeah. Yeah. So, first phase, I think, is that everyone went and bought a lot of, quote-unquote, "necessary" supplies. Toilet paper brawls break out. Canned food.

And then, things sort of settle. And, what tended to happen is there were two trajectories. On one hand, like I mentioned, that just impulse buying went up. You had a lot of people buying just random items they maybe wouldn't have before. But, the second group that was interesting is that you also had this massive surge in people who were decluttering and getting rid of things and minimalizing.

So, there was really interesting anecdotes from people who run secondhand stores, from people who run donation centers. They all just said, 'We've never seen this much stuff come our--we don't know what to do with it all.' It's just been this insane surge of stuff. So, you really had these two different reactions.

And Stephanie Preston, who I mentioned, she thinks: Well, yeah--pandemic was a stressful time. You could deal with that stress through distracting yourself on the Internet on shopping sites. And, it feels good to buy. It feels good to click-buy. The search is--oh, it's so much fun. Looking for that one right item. Right? But then, on the other hand, you had people who got in their house and go, 'I can find a sense of control here if I can just get everything in its perfect order--if I can pare down, if my shelves are perfect, if I have only what I need.'

17:38

Russ Roberts: And, you're a hunter. Or you've been a hunter--I don't know if you still hunt. But, certainly there's a dopamine, primitive--I mean, it's an absurd thing to say, but I think it's true: Shopping is a lot like hunting. I'm sure there's been Ph.D. theses written on it. Many.

But, you make another observation, which I think is really interesting, which is: people who hoard--and there's degrees of hoarding, as you talk about in your paper. It's a continuous variable. But, hoarding as a general phenomenon is pitiable. People who hoard--people feel sorry for them. There's clearly something wrong with them. They have huge stacks of things. At its extreme. A modern American house that has 50,000 items, most of those people would say, 'Oh, no, no. I'm not a hoarder.' But, they are using purchases to satisfy many times a dopamine shortage that they're trying to correct or a desire for that control.

Minimalists, on the other hand, are respected, even revered. First, the environmental parts--it's considered virtuous--but also the idea of some kind of harmony with their stuff because the shelves are lined up neatly and there's not stuff everywhere. The word 'clutter' is really an interesting word. Clutter is definitely a negative word. So, decluttering is virtuous, and clutter is clearly a sign of a disordered person. I don't really believe that, but that's a common view.

But, you make the point that minimalism has a downside to it that's not obvious. The two tails both have their problems.

Michael Easter: Yeah. I think you're right. Culturally, we look at hoarding as this bad thing. If you're a hoarder, you're gross. And, hoarders get portrayed in these sort of reality shows where the host goes into a home and there's newspapers from 30 years piled up; and it's just gross. So, that's what we see when we think of hoarding.

Now, Stephanie Preston, she did make the point that if you look at all of us in the grand scheme of time and space, we're all hoarders. People didn't really own that much up until really after the Industrial Revolution. And I think it's really kicked off since the Internet came into our lives. But, minimalists, on the other hand, if you watch the reality shows around minimalism--oh man, it's like a religious experience. Everything is clean and perfect, and that gets really propped up as next to godliness almost.

For example, I was on a podcast that was about minimalism. They were talking to me about Scarcity Brain, and even the way it was filmed--I mean, I had this black background and light on my face, and it was just, like, the whole aesthetic. I'm like, 'Oh man, I look like a cult leader or something. This is great.' But, I do think one of the other downsides of minimalism is that--and this was especially true after the Magic Art of Tidying Up--was that the name of the book?

Russ Roberts: I don't know but I know what you're talking about and I bet a few of our listeners do. First, I want to apologize that we don't have the production values you're used to, Michael. I apologize for that. You've been spoiled. Go ahead.

Michael Easter: You can do some after-effects, Russ.

Russ Roberts: Maybe.

Michael Easter: It'll be good.

So, one of the things that people found is once they did start to really minimize, they started throwing stuff out that they two weeks later go, 'Oh, wait, I actually needed that.' Like, to a certain extent, we have our tools for a reason.

So, one of the things that I write about in my newsletter--and I had this in the book Scarcity Brain, too--is: how do you frame purchases? Now, my way is: I think of things as gear, not stuff. So, by putting it through that sort of framework--works for me. I can think: 'Okay, gear is an item that I am using to achieve some higher purpose. It's going to help me do my job better. It's going to get me out in the world and give me these experiences that elevate my life as a whole.' Whereas, stuff is, 'Here's this thing I have that I'm not really using for the sake of it. It doesn't really get used. It felt good as I was searching for it, sure, but once I got it, it was kind of: the thrill is gone. It didn't add to my life after the fact using it.'

22:30

Russ Roberts: But, I derailed you. I apologize about my bad joke about production values.

I think what's interesting about the revering of minimalism or the religious component of it--I would call it spiritual, maybe is a better word--is that: I'm sure there's some people who do it for all kinds of reasons that are admirable. But, the psychological reason that Stephanie Preston is talking about and that we're talking about, of control--it suggests that your urge to be minimalist is a way of covering up an underlying problem. And, if you're not careful, you will blind yourself to that challenge. And, the real challenge is not accumulation: it's accepting that life is unpredictable and you've got to live with uncertainty.

Michael Easter: Yeah. Yeah. Spot on.

I do think that--I mean, she would argue, and I think this is true--that life is complicated. It's really complex. It comes with a lot of tough feelings. And, having to ask these bigger underlying questions is tough.

And, people find ways to deal with that through a variety of ways. Some people buy a bunch of stuff. I live in Las Vegas: some people gamble, some people drink. But, some people, they find the control and a little bit of certainty in that uncertainty by minimizing--by finding the perfect number of items and getting everything in their house orderly.

And this was actually--as I was reporting this, it was really interesting for me because I would say that, in terms of a spectrum, my wife and I are on different sides. I'm a little more likely to have stuff out around the house; and stuff will be out, a little more disorganized. And, my wife keeps our home like a museum. If I leave something out, it's, like, 'Why are you leaving this thing out? What are you doing?' And, my reaction is, 'What do you care? It's just sitting there. It's not dirty, you know.' But, for her, she goes, 'No, I get stressed out when there is stuff all over the house. It just stresses me out.'

And so, when I spoke to Stephanie Preston, it was this--like, a little bit of light bulb went off. Like, 'Oh. Okay. I see. I feel like I might need something at some point, so let's keep it out. I have all these different reasons. But, for my wife, that's like a panic attack: We don't want all this crap all over the house.' And so, it helped me understand some of these underlying reasons we behave the way we do with possessions.

Russ Roberts: So, I probably have a variety of different clutter problems. You can't see my desk: my main desk is over there and it doesn't look so good. I think I have an issue with books. It's interesting. I like to leave my books out, and I like to read multiple books at a time, and I like to have books I'm hoping to read soon out as well. And I defend myself, perhaps irrationally, by saying if I put them away, I won't see them and then I'll forget about them. And, that creates anxiety for me, by the way. And so, what I'm going to do--and the obvious solution to that is, well, you could just have a dedicated shelf called 'books I'm going to read soon.' And, there's something about that that doesn't work for me. I like to see them out, either on the coffee table--I pile them up a little bit. Not too high--not scary high--on the arms of the couch. And, that way they're there for me. They're ready. I can get right at them whenever I need to. And, I suspect maybe people have different things that are like that.

Michael Easter: Yeah. I definitely agree. And I think, in terms of how it relates to these ideas of having a lot of stuff or keeping a low amount of stuff is: if you have more items in theory--so I think evolutionarily it probably made sense to have more tools rather than less for most of time. If you have more tools, tools can help you survive. You might need an extra bow or spear, whatever it might be. So, I think that we're wired to accumulate more rather than less in the grand scheme of time and space, because that gives us certainty: Okay, I can use this thing to survive.

Now, applied to today I think that a lot of people still feel that where it's like, well, don't throw that thing away because you might need it. And, if something comes up--there's this underlying uncertainty--well, that could help you.

Bu, I also think that the flip side of that is having too much can also be constraining. And so, some people maybe feel more like they can cope with uncertainty if they're more free.

So, I'll give you a great example of this. My first boss, when I was in the magazine industry, one of his first pieces of advice was: never keep more items in your desk than you can fit into a single box. Because if you get canned, you don't want to have to be coming back into this office to get a bunch of stuff. So, literally, this guy--

Russ Roberts: That is so heartwarming. That is so heartwarming.

Michael Easter: Well, let me tell you what, that's a man who works in journalism in the modern times right there.

So, his whole thing was his office was totally Spartan, and it was really just for that day so he could feel like, 'Okay. When the day comes, I just pack my stuff and I'm out of here.' That just gave him relief. If he had too much stuff in the office, it would be: I'm going to have to make multiple trips; everyone's going to see me. But, I think that's kind of a metaphor for a lot of people who get really down the minimalism rabbit hole: 'If I have little stuff, I can go at any time, and I'm good to go.'

28:34

Russ Roberts: What's fascinating about this moment is we're rich enough to be minimalist. Right? You alluded to this before implicitly: Minimalism is the essence of human history. It's true we'd like to have a lot of tools, but most of the time we couldn't. We would have been thrilled to have a closet full of clothes, but we didn't. We had a shirt, a pair of pants, one pair of shoes would be like, in some parts of--many, many, many parts of human history, and even sadly, some people today, that's a fabulous achievement. That people might have 30 or 40 would be literally unimaginable.

And so, in a way, clutter, hoarding, and so on are a first world problem. And, minimalism is an attempt to--I don't know what you'd call it, but I think it's definitely a form of control. When you're talking about your boss, I was thinking about your desk in that job; and you probably had a desk and have a desk like this at home--I'm sure many listeners do--it's where you keep all your cords. Do you have a drawer like that?

Michael Easter: Yeah.

Russ Roberts: Right. There's charging cords in there, connecting cords. They're totally useless. Now you say to yourself, like you said, 'I might need some of these one day.' First of all, there's 80 of them in there, and they're all tangled together in a hopeless way. So, if you actually need one--I realized at one point, I'm just going to buy a new one. The idea that I'm going to find it in there: I'm going to spend an hour going through there? That's the example again in my life where I can feel that, but I think that's extremely common.

Michael Easter: Oh yeah, absolutely. It's funny you say that because I had to plug something in with a strange cord the other day, and I keep all my cords in this case, and it's just this rat's nest. This big ball. It took me at least 10 minutes to go, 'Is this the end for the one?' And then, you're detangling it. Yeah.

To your point, though, one fun little stat that I came across is that Martha Washington--this is the First Lady--she's got to be wealthy. She owned 15 outfits. The average person today owns more than 105 pieces of clothes in their closet.

Now, if you watch something like any of the Housewife franchises [TV reality series], you will know they own 500 different items of clothes. And, what's interesting, too, is that when you look at how often people wear stuff--like, half of the stuff in that closet, people only wear once a year. If that. And, we tend to return to wearing the same things over and over and over, but we have all these different clothes because you might wear that one day.

I mean, if I went in my closet right now, I could tell you there's items in there that I haven't worn in two years, but I go, 'Well, it was kind of nice. It was expensive. Might as well just keep it in here.' So, I think that that has really been a big change in time where it really wasn't until the 20th century that people started just accumulating items. And, I think it started with the rich. The rich could use that as a flex[?] to go, 'Hey, I have money. Look, I'm wearing something different than I did yesterday. Look at that.' And, people go, 'Oh, my God. Wow. That person must have piles of money.' And then, over time, that started to become the norm: where, as prices went down, everyone could start to do that.

And then, I think that what tends to happen is that once that becomes the norm, you have a pushback. So, now the wealthy have to go, 'Well, what the hell do we do now? They're wearing a different outfit every day, too.' And then, you get a tip into minimalism. Because I will say, if you look at minimalism, it does tend to be people who are in wealthier economic classes that get into it.

And, the way that it is often played out in terms of how it functions: It's not just removing things. It's also buying the right things.

And so, you'll go to minimalism sites and it's: you only need one pen, and the pen you should have is this beautiful, sleek, minimalist--and by the way, it's $79. So, that becomes its sort of own--it's just this cycle of: Okay, the wealthy adopt this thing, but now everyone can do it; so now how do we set ourselves apart status-wise with our items? So, now we've got to figure out a new way. And, it's kind of like the cycle continues over time.

Russ Roberts: Well, the status thing is a nice insight. A friend of mine observed once that the number of keys you carry is inversely related to your wealth and status. So, the janitor has got this ring with 70, 80, a hundred keys. Right? The richest people have no keys. It's not like they have fewer: they have none. They have a doorman at their house. They never have to lock their house. They never have to get into their house because they have 24-hour door service.

And, all of a sudden having a key must have been a big deal at some point in human history. It's, like: I have a door--I have a house with a door, starters. Secondly, it's so secure: I can close it and no one else can come in. That was a huge breakthrough in human well-being. But after a while, everybody had one, like you said. So, actually it goes the other way. And, what you want to show is you have fewer keys; it's no big deal.

Michael Easter: Yeah. And with how inexpensive things have become relatively--I think that's a good thing overall.

Russ Roberts: Absolutely. For sure.

Michael Easter: More people have more access to things.

Another thing that I came upon that was fascinating is: it used to take--people who would make nails, I don't know if there's a special word to describe that job. But, people who would make construction nails, it would take about 15 minutes to make a nail. Well, now, modern machines can make 60 nails in about one minute. Right? And so, nails were so in demand and so expensive that there used to be arsonists who would go around burning buildings so they could then steal the nails. And now it's, like, I can go online to homedepot.com and buy a hundred of them for probably, like, five bucks. It's just the way that items have--we have so much more, and it's also much cheaper. Which is great in the grand scheme of time and space, but I do think it can lead to some interesting side-effects in terms of now we just buy and buy and buy because it's much easier to do so. And that can come with some downsides.

35:31

Russ Roberts: I want to come back to this underlying issue of control. Recognizing it is a huge step forward. Recognizing the things you do in your life so that you can feel like you're in control is the beginning of wisdom, of making some progress. So, if you are a hoarder or a minimalist and this strikes you as--that these observations that we've been making hit home, that's a chance for you to start thinking about maybe there's another way I can cope with this.

There are many ways to cope with it. There's meditation, there's religion, there's therapy, there's reading a good book, there's drinking a nice cup of tea and having a ritual around it. There's many, many ways to cope with the fact that life is sometimes hard to deal with because it's uncertain. But, I think these insights about that we use our stuff as a way to do that--it's an innovative thought for many people, I suspect.

Michael Easter: Yeah. And, I think when it comes to the uncertainty and control thing--I mean, I have various things that I do to try and gain control. But I think something that I've learned over time through a lot of my reporting, which I go into a lot of different countries, not always places that are friendly or a lot of places that are off the grid. I've also discovered that if I'm in complete control, it's not as interesting. What is an adventure but I don't know what's going to happen, but I'm going to walk into this thing no matter what? And, that's what ultimately makes life interesting, is ceding control and being willing to roll with the punches and figure things out.

So, my writing, I have this motto I always tell myself: 'No problem? No story.' I'm there to get a story. And, if I show up to a country and the fixer has figured everything out perfectly for me--I get from point A to B perfectly, everything goes great--yeah, I get my information, but it's not that interesting of a story. I need to be out of control and have things go a little bit off the rails, be a little bit unpredictable. I need to cede control and just go with it. And, 'Oh, it turns out the fixer was totally full of it. Well, that's kind of funny,' because now I have to adapt to the circumstances and that ultimately leads to having stories.

If we're talking right now about the times I've been in airports, I don't remember the times where I showed up super-early. I remember the times where, oh, they changed my gate and I had to run across the airport because I was at the wrong gate: I didn't get the update. And then, I sat down in my chair and I was sweaty, and this old woman next to me thought I was a drug addict. It's just like the craziness and the unpredictability is ultimately, I think, the times that we remember.

So, remembering that there's always a little bit of an opportunity and a chance to learn and get a story out of being okay with ceding control sometimes, even though it's uncomfortable.

Russ Roberts: You are a journalist so getting a story is important professionally. But of course, in life, stories are often a reward for many, many things we go through, good and bad.

Now, in your book, The Comfort Crisis, you talk about the importance of getting out into the real world, the physical world, doing physically demanding things. You talk about challenges that may be insurmountable but won't kill you if you try to surmount them. Which is, Japanese word is?

Michael Easter: Misogi. [Pronounced with a hard 'g' as in the word 'give.'--Econlib ed.]

Russ Roberts: Misogi. And, I'm curious in your--you've done a bunch. I think you did one recently, you wrote about it. Some of that is just the overcoming of challenge, hardship, struggle. You're tired, you keep going. That can be very rewarding. In your experience though, how much of it is that adventure part, that something happened unexpected that was later memorable?

Michael Easter: I think that's a huge driver for me, personally. And, I'll say I also see it in others.

So, I think one of the reasons that people tend to find nature so rewarding and fulfilling in one way is that it's very unpredictable. You can't control everything. You're exposed to the elements. You can't control the weather. You don't know if you might come upon some wildlife, you don't know--does the trail just keep climbing? Do I just have to keep hiking upward?

Like, the other day I was out in the desert--and I live near the desert in Las Vegas--and doing my thing--walking, hiking--and I hear this little rustle. And, I look over and there's these two coyotes, and they're like walking right past me, 10 feet away. And, they stop--di, di, di--and they look at me and I look at them, just kind of nod, and they go on their way. I'm going to remember those coyotes for the rest of my life. It was this totally unpredictable thing that just happened to insert itself. And, I'm always going to remember it because I got out in the real world and things happen out there.

And, I see it in others. I did this misogi event in Costa Rica with a group of people. We took them out and led them on a misogi. And, the big value proposition is we spend a couple of days talking about philosophy, theory, doing some training, and then we have this big event on Day Three. And, we didn't tell them anything. We did not tell them a thing. And, we had this guy who was this--he's a doctor. He went to Hopkins [Johns Hopkins University]. Did a lot of stuff in government policy. Like, this guy is dialed. And, he just gets to the start of it. And, I go, 'Okay. We're going to start hiking.' And he grabs me. He goes, 'How far are we going to hike? When is it going to be--?' And I go, 'Bobby, you'll find out.'

So, putting people in the scenario where there is some uncertainty--you just have to learn to roll with it. By the time we got to the end, that guy goes, 'I've never had to deal with that level of uncertainty. And, along the way, I learned so much about how I always want to control every little thing. And I literally just had to give up.' And, it got to the end and he was, like, 'That was just so insightful for me that it's kind of this metaphor for life.' Like, you really can't control anything at the end of the day. Although we try, we focus on these little things that we think can give us a sense of control, but the reality is, is it's a little bit for nothing in the end. And, being willing to roll with those punches and just see where life goes, that makes life interesting.

42:36

Russ Roberts: Well, since I've been confessing some of my neuroses, I'm going to add one now, which you'll find interesting along those lines. When we go hiking--when my wife and I go hiking--she's very comfortable with: 'Well, we'll find the trail. I think it's over there. I'm not sure where the turn is.' I've got my phone out. Now, I'm not on the Internet doing shopping. I'm not checking my email. I'm not on Twitter. I've got all trails going, and I know exactly where I am. And not only do I know how far we have to go, but I know how much elevation gain we're going to make. And, I know when we've gone through the worst of that or the most challenging of it. And, I realize now--this is when we were on a hike last week--this is deeply comforting to me in a really embarrassing way. And I'm going to try to use less of that; and I think it would be good for me. I'm going to give it a go. Of course, you could argue you've got to have some control somewhere in your life. So, that's my little crutch; is it really that bad? But, I'm going to try to grow. I like that idea. It's beautiful.

Michael Easter: Yeah. I'll give you one that I've practiced similar to yours. My wife and I like to go out to restaurants. Las Vegas is an amazing food city. And, so if I'm looking for a restaurant, what do I do? It's: I go on Yelp. I got to read all the reviews. I got to do this. We make a reservation before I go. I got to read the menu. I'm going to look at photos. That is no longer a new experience. I mean, it's like I know exactly what I'm going to get. I sit down and I already--they give me the menu and I pretend to read it, but I'm, like, 'I already know I'm getting a pork chop. Mike225 on Yelp said it was the greatest thing he'd ever eaten in his life. I got to listen to Mike.' And so, I think one thing that we've experimented with is my wife and I will just kind of drive aimlessly in Las Vegas; and we'll see a restaurant and go, 'How about that one?' We don't read any reviews. We don't know anything. We don't know what to expect. We don't know what's on the menu. And, it's really fun. It's really fun.

I will say we've had some bad meals, but we've also discovered just some absolute gems that would have been overlooked by the algorithms. Because when you're looking at, like, a Yelp page, everyone who goes on there wants different things out of the restaurant. Some people are going to value expedient service. Some people are going to want slow service. There's a million different things people value; and it all gets tunneled into this five stars, whatever--one through five stars--average. And I think that misses what you actually want out of the experience. Like, you're never going to figure out what you're going to get out of the experience.

So, I think just throwing in different ways to not have everything perfectly planned, especially if it's something safe. If I'm going on another expedition into Alaska, I'm not going to go haphazard into that. But, in everyday life, it can be fun to just find adventure and sense of exploration through the everyday by not having everything perfectly calculated, oftentimes through your phone and through the Internet.

Russ Roberts: So, a friend of mine is telling me about this three-star Michelin restaurant, which I can't eat in because I keep kosher. But, I look up the website and it gets 4.5 stars out of five. And I'm thinking, 'That's insane: 4.5? It's such a low score.' And, a meal there--I can't remember what it is: about, this is in the ballpark--a meal there might be a $500 experience for one person. So, imagine: you take your wife or your buddy and you go have a thousand-dollar evening. And it's just great. It's not extraordinary: it's merely just great. So, you give it to four stars instead of five. It's the best meal you've ever eaten. But, your expectations were: It's a Michelin three-star, and you're spending a thousand bucks; and it was just really, really good. And so, you have a terrible evening. Which is insane.

And so, what I love about your restaurant strategy is, like, saying: so much of happiness in life is expectations and failure to meet them. So, I think for food--and it's true for movies. Some of my kids--maybe all of them--they don't watch trailers. They feel that that gives away too much of the plot. But, the other part I think they feel is that: I want to go into the movie knowing nothing about it. I don't want to know that everyone loved it. And, my kids will watch--by the way, they're adults. They'll watch movies that I won't watch. And they enjoy them, by the way. I won't watch them because they're awful in my mind. I look at them--bad or mediocre reviews. But, they're in there. Like you said: maybe the service wasn't so great, but the food was extraordinary, or vice versa. Maybe the food was just okay. But, there's something about the decor that was soothing. And that number of stars is totally misleading. But, the idea that, 'Oh my gosh, I don't want to waste a minute. I never want to have a dinner that's just okay. It should all be extraordinary,' forgetting the fact that setting up that expectation means often you're just going to be disappointed. So, I love this idea of creating more surprise in your life. It's really nice.

Michael Easter: Yeah. And, you're absolutely right about expectations. It's, like, if I say, 'Hey, Russ, I happened to win the lottery. I'm going to give you a million bucks.' Now, that seems great. Right? Now, if you were expecting me to give you two million bucks, you'd go, 'Oh, really?'

Russ Roberts: That's it?

Michael Easter: 'Only a million?' If you were expecting me to give you nothing--if it was unexpected or you were expecting a hundred thousand dollars--all of a sudden, that's great.

So, when we enter an experience with expectations, if it really exceeds our expectations, great. That was a wonderful experience. But if it falls below them, as in the case of the Michelin star--which, that sets a really high bar: that's a hard one to live up to--then that's going to change things. And, I think that's why there's this idea of hidden gems.

Russ Roberts: Yeah. It's true.

Michael Easter: Hidden gem. Like, the implication is: this is going to be okay. You go in thinking it's going to be okay and it turns out it was awesome. And, that's why it's so valuable.

Russ Roberts: Of course, it's all separate neurosis we haven't touched, which is: pre-internet: a lot of people found the hole-in-the-wall place that nobody knew about, and they were the first ones to find out about it. They gained prestige and cachet because they knew the really good, authentic fill-in-the-blank place. And, those days are kind of over. But not for you. You recreate it by going to a place you've never eaten before with no expectations.

49:37

Russ Roberts: So, there's one rule for acquiring things or getting rid of things you already have, which I suspect--I'm pretty sure its from that book you mentioned that we're going to try to get exactly right. But, I think her rule is: if it gives you joy, keep it. But, if it doesn't give you joy, give it away, sell it, throw it away, whatever it is. And, I'm thinking--it's interesting. But, I really don't want most of my stuff to be related to joy. I want to find my joy in human beings, in beauty, in art, in a novel thought, a beautiful landscape. So, I think that's the wrong standard, personally. Maybe I'm misunderstanding it. But you have a different of rules for how to figure out whether to buy something or not and I really like that so go ahead.

Michael Easter: Yeah. So, my four rules, if I'm going to make a purchase are--the first thing I've written them down so I don't forget. One is: Why am I buying this? So, you go on the Internet, you look up a thing, you go, 'Okay. Why am I buying this? What's the answer to that?'

Number two: Is it possible that I am bored or I am stressed? Because, we know that a lot of purchases come from: I'm just sitting around, I don't have anything to do. I was on Instagram. I got fed this perfectly targeted ad for me. You're fulfilling boredom by making that purchase. Or you could just be stressed. And, this is a way to--that search that we talked about like hunting online for goods can help relieve stress. We know that.

Number three: What do I intend to accomplish with this item? Okay. What am I actually going to do with it?

And then, four: Do I already own something that can do this? So, in the case--to bring it back to the beginning--in the case of my Filson shirt, when I run it through that algorithm, I go, 'Okay. Thank God for online returns.' And, it is happily back at the Filson warehouse. With tags. I didn't even put it on. It was just, like, boom. It's like I hit it back with a tennis racket.

Russ Roberts: And, does that work for you? It's good for your article, and I love the idea of it. Do you find yourself actually using it, or does it just sound good?

Michael Easter: Except on Black Friday when all of a sudden there's the drop in price and: 'Michael, there's only three left in large.' Yeah. It's one of those things, it's like all rules in life. It's like they work when we remember them. I found it to be useful when I remember, and I'm not perfect. I make purchases that I later go, 'Why'd you buy that?' But, I think it's definitely saved me some purchases that I didn't need.

And, I even think another good thing is just I found inserting time is very valuable. Basically, as a general rule, I think the faster you can do a rewarding behavior, the more likely you are to do that rewarding behavior. And, we can buy faster than ever now. So, simply, if you see something online going, okay, I'm going to put it in the cart and I'm going to wait 72 hours, I think most people will find: Why was I even thinking of buying? I didn't need that. And then, you don't end up buying that. And, I think that can save a lot of dollars and headaches.

Russ Roberts: And, just one last closing--a neurosis of mine. Most of my life, I don't think I have a problem with over-buying. I have a few weaknesses, small weaknesses. I really like backpacks and suitcases and things like that. Things to carry things in, which I know you can relate to as a rucker. But, books--I'm going to make an exception for it. Just like I like the books out--for a long time in my life, I've never said no to a book, and part of it is what you made fun of earlier, but in my case, I hope it's actually the case that, yeah, I might need that someday. Even in today's world where we have so much access to online information, my library is a deep source of comfort for me. And, maybe we all have something like that in our lives that we need to hoard a little bit of.

Michael Easter: Yeah. Yeah. Pick your battles. It's like if it's something really is going to bring you joy and you realize it's a little bit irrational, but you're okay with that just because, oh, man, you love it. It seems good to me. It's like in your book, Wild Problems. There's not a clear answer to any of this. It's having to figure things out yourself.

Russ Roberts: Yeah. My guest today has been Michael Easter. Michael, thanks for being part of EconTalk.

Michael Easter: Thank you.

Minimalists and Hoarders (with Michael Easter)

Peter Attia on Lifespan, Healthspan, and Outlive

Adam Minter on Secondhand

READER COMMENTS

Mike

Feb 10 2025 at 10:21am

Claire

Feb 11 2025 at 5:59am

Gregg Tavares

Feb 18 2025 at 3:48am

Mike Krautstrunk

Feb 10 2025 at 1:13pm

neil21

Feb 10 2025 at 4:57pm

Eric

Feb 10 2025 at 6:09pm

Paul Mantyla

Feb 11 2025 at 2:19pm

Darryl

Feb 19 2025 at 7:42pm

Luke J

Feb 11 2025 at 11:26pm

Ross Janetzki

Feb 12 2025 at 12:58am

Darryl

Feb 19 2025 at 7:34pm

Minimalists and Hoarders (with Michael Easter)

Peter Attia on Lifespan, Healthspan, and Outlive

Adam Minter on Secondhand

READER COMMENTS

Mike

Feb 10 2025 at 10:21am

Claire

Feb 11 2025 at 5:59am

Gregg Tavares

Feb 18 2025 at 3:48am

Mike Krautstrunk

Feb 10 2025 at 1:13pm

neil21

Feb 10 2025 at 4:57pm

Eric

Feb 10 2025 at 6:09pm

Paul Mantyla

Feb 11 2025 at 2:19pm

Darryl

Feb 19 2025 at 7:42pm

Luke J

Feb 11 2025 at 11:26pm

Ross Janetzki

Feb 12 2025 at 12:58am

Darryl

Feb 19 2025 at 7:34pm

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