I look around sometimes at the paraphernalia of our living–sandwich bags, typewriters, little wheels off things–and marvel at the complexities of civilization with which we surround ourselves; would we be pleased, I wonder, at a wholesale elimination of these things, so that we were reduced only to necessities (coffeepot, typewriters, the essential little wheels off things) and then–this happening usually in the springtime–I begin throwing things away, and it turns out that although we can live agreeably without the little wheels off things, new little wheels turn up almost immediately.  This is, I suspect, progress.  They can make new little wheels, if not faster than they can fall off things, at least faster than I can throw them away.

Shirley Jackson, Life Among the Savages

…Oh, Shirley.  Me too, girl.  Me too.