We are in a collective, and most unfortunate, paroxysm of guilt and anxiety about stuff.

This is a cyclical event, and here we are, back in the eternal return of the same. We are being barraged with orders to pare down, throw away, de-clutter.

Magazine covers advertise formulas for how to get rid of things (most of which involve buying new things for this purpose).

Entire books (books we will soon enough be told to toss) cover the subject. And, even then there is an “art,” a Japanese art, no less, to doing so (and we all know that any Japanese art is the most artful art of all).

Entire companies are being built on the backs of a neurosis that makes us believe that the process of shedding is complicated to the point of paralyzing.776

It is all pointless and misguided, and it is time to liberate ourselves from the propaganda of divestment.

I would like to submit an entirely different agenda, one that is built on love, cherishing and timelessness. One that acknowledges that in living, we accumulate. We admire. We desire. We love. We collect. We display.

And over the course of a lifetime, we forage, root and rummage around in our stuff, because that is part of what it means to be human. We treasure.165

Why on earth would we get rid of our wonderful things?

Students: Read the entire article, then tell us …

— Ms. Browning writes, “Some of us, rare breeds, tend toward the minimalist; some tip into a disorder of hoarding. Most of us live in the middle range.” Where do you see yourself on the continuum between minimalism and hoarding? Do you lean more in one direction or the other?

— Do you have low tolerance for clutter in your bedroom, your house or your life in general? Do you enjoy getting rid of things that you don’t really need anymore?

— Or do you like to hold on to stuff you collect in life, such as old art projects, notebooks, T-shirts, sneakers, books or anything else? How do you keep all of it from taking over your space?

— Do you agree with Ms. Browning’s point of view when she writes: “I am not done with living. I am not done with my things. I love them, in fact, more and more each year, as I recollect the journey that brought us together. I will cherish them, till death do us part”? Do you have things that you will cherish forever?

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