Seeking Simplicity in a Land of Excess

Not long ago a woman went to the Brentwood office of psychiatrist Roderic Gorney, lay down on his couch, and told him she owned 128 pairs of shoes.

And yet she had not found happiness.

Dozens of boots, flats and pumps, and still miserable.

The woman worked as an attorney, Gorney said, and would find herself running out on lunch breaks and “prowling malls,” occasionally returning some shoes but always buying more, more, more.

I would have prescribed six months of living under a tree and two years of working in a soup kitchen.

But Dr. Gorney diagnosed her with obsessive-compulsive disorder and controlled her cravings with psychotherapy and Prozac. I’m guessing it was not the first time a Westsider needed to be heavily medicated to resist the tug of Montana Avenue.

But who am I to throw stones? I realize the entire U.S. economy is based on people buying things they don’t need with money they don’t have, and I try to do my part.

As I spoke to Gorney, a 79-year-old UCLA professor, I realized I was wearing brand-new corduroys and brand-new shoes, neither of which I desperately needed.

Gorney said biological factors and the incessant marketing barrage have conspired to make us feel as if we’ve never got enough stuff, even in this land of wretched excess.

For the first time in history, Gorney said, the world has as many obese people as starving people, and no country is as fat as the U.S. of A.

He’s convinced that an epidemic of over-consumption is wrecking our lives, destroying the planet, and further tilting the balance of wealth and power, raising the risk of war.

One more pair of shoes, and that woman could have gotten us all killed.

But there is a way out of this trap.

This coming Saturday, any Angeleno with uncontrollable urges to max out the credit cards on shoes, gas hogs, jewelry, face-lifts, big-screen TVs or all-you-can-eat buffets can attend a conference on the UCLA campus and learn about a vastly simpler and much more satisfying life.

Gorney and other speakers, including the author of “I Shop, Therefore I Am,” will headline a conference called “Mental Health and Simple Living -- Countering the Compulsion to Consume.”

Co-sponsoring the convention is a group called Seeds of Simplicity, whose members have downsized their homes, their cars, their budgets and their stress.

(For information on Saturday’s convention, check www.seedsofsimplicity.org or call 1-877-UNSTUFF.)

I asked Gorney if you have to raise your hand at a Simplicity meeting and say:

“My name is Steve Lopez and I bought 12 jazz CDs last Thursday at Amoeba Music.”

He said it’s not like that at all.

One Simplicity convert is Michael Beck of Glendale. The fourth-grade teacher in the Los Angeles Unified School District was so stressed by the growing demands of his job in an era of cutbacks, he began literally eating himself to death.

Finally, he quit at 59, knowing he’d have to live on half the pension a few more years of service would bring.

Unemployment saved his life.

He cut back on everything but wants for nothing, and now he volunteers for a Sierra Club program, educating people on the evils of processed and fast food mass-marketed by mega-corporations to willing victims the world over.

“It’s much more satisfying than grubbing for money at a job that had lost all meaning,” Beck said.

Seeds of Simplicity is led by a Glendale woman who cannot recall the last time she went to the Glendale Galleria.

“I absent myself from the shopping fever of this country,” said Carol Holst, who drives a Toyota Prius hybrid, shops at thrift stores, drinks tap water with meals of chopped cabbage and veggies, and has never been happier.

Sounds admirable, but I don’t know if I could “absent” myself from liquor, tobacco and greasy tacos and still find life worth living. Maybe that’s where the Prozac comes in.

The problem in L.A. is temptation on every corner. Humility has to compete with narcissism, and self-restraint with conspicuous consumption.

For example, one week after the UCLA convention celebrating the simple pleasures of chopped cabbage and tap water, the National Luxury Services Convention will be held in Beverly Hills to “highlight exclusive goods and services for private estates, yachts and jets.”

Festivities will include awards for private chef of the year, butler of the year, celebrity personal assistant of the year and private and corporate jet flight attendant of the year.

How can you not love L.A., which has something for everyone? And can you imagine the scene if the catering lists got mixed up, and the Luxury Services menu got shipped to the Gandhi love-in at the Simple Living convention?

“There will be ice carving and sushi demonstrations and tasting by high-end purveyors such as Beverly Hills Cheese Store, Dom Perignon, Dean & DeLuca, Evian, etc.,” the press release says.

But there’s bad news along with the good. Tragic news, in fact.

“On February 9, 2004,” the Luxury Services press release says, “there will be no entertaining in any celebrity homes in the L.A. area.”

No! Please, no!

“All house managers, personal assistants, butlers and personal chefs of the rich and famous will be attending this exclusive event.”

As an added attraction, Dr. Gorney’s former patient will be modeling her 128 pairs of shoes. (Just kidding.)

Speaking of Gorney, it’s my job to ask tough questions. And it was hard not to bring up the fact that I was talking to a guy who preaches simple living and self-restraint at his house in the Brentwood hills, with a stunning view of Santa Monica Bay and Santa Catalina Island.

So what gives, Doc?

He bought the place in 1967 for $62,500, Gorney said. And he drives an 8-year-old Volvo.

You know the next question, right?

He owns four pairs of shoes.

*

Steve Lopez writes Sunday, Wednesday and Friday. Reach him at steve.lopez@latimes.com, and read previous columns at latimes.com/lopez.