Hoarding occurs on a spectrum of severity. It can be a light nuisance, a serious problem that impinges on one’s life-possibilities, or a severe mental affliction with potentially dire implications for physical health. It’s a distorted version of some natural and necessary mental functions. In the deeply ancient world, long before civilization, people generally kept only what they could carry. Evolutionary psychology of this sort can easily jump to mistaken conclusions, but it seems likely that somewhere along the line it became adaptive to try and hang onto stuff that might be useful later on. A temperament that disposed people to a more retentive attitude became partly heritable—despite the fact that it could also cause trouble...
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