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Holistic Keeping Practices, Empowering Keepers, Avoiding Pitfalls, Busting "Hoarding" Misconceptions, Having Fun

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Functional Stupidity: Do Everything Right, Obey The Rules ( As You Know Them ) Perfectly, Get A Stupid Result


Functional Stupidity is the phenomenon of diligently and competently following a set of flawed rules or a faulty model, thereby producing a perfectly irrational or counter-productive result.

You can do everything right, and still lose big time.

Using a computer analogy - executing a faulty program perfectly leads to a perfectly faulty result.

Thus it is with following "hoarding" "experts" advice - if followed perfectly, it leads to.. being someone other than yourself, and I'm convinced it's a bad thing in the vast majority of cases.

Thus it is with Frustrated Family Members - they are following their own "program", as it is known to them, including Nagging and Yelling ; yet, the result is a disaster for everyone.

In mathematical logic, it is said "False Implies Anything" - if you start with a false premise, you can get whatever result, but it doesn't mean anything.

Or, another way to think about it is the good ol' adage - "ask a stupid question, get a stupid answer".

"Why do you keep garbage ?" is a stupid question, and any possible answer to it, if taken at face value, will be stupid - for the one answering ; the very act of answering it is stupid. Figuratively speaking.

Make sure you're running the good, verified program.