One of the worst things about the new year is having to endure everyone's smug announcements about all the ways they plan on being better than you for the next 365 days. This year, it seems gluten-free diets and lemon detox cleanses are giving way to the anti-clutter industry. Spurred on by the "wellness" guru Marie Kondo, people seem obsessed with telling us how "renewed" they feel by having more money but — get this — less actual stuff than those hoarding poors.
Don't get me wrong. I am as fanatically opposed to consumption and possession for their own sakes as any aging hippie in Vermont. I am such a grinch that I don't even buy my children toys for Christmas. I am so rabidly opposed to the reign of synthetic materials in modern life that I would support a plastic tax of 10 or even 20 percent on everything from kitchenware to t-shirts, and an outright ban on things like polypropylene straws.
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