This week, we turn our attention to Stuffocation, in which author James Wallman calls out to the reader buried under too many possessions.

Wallman wrote what amounts to an excellent magazine article. But if one repeats one’s useful ideas enough times, one can stretch an idea up to book-length and take up your entire week. In fact, the reading experience resembled a cab ride I took in Mexico, in which my fellow riders recognized street corners we had already passed, probably  twice.

Wallman’s big idea is: spend your money on experiences instead of one more pair of shoes. Of course, there are problems with that too. I won’t give it away here. But if you plow through his chapters, you will know the problem inside and out. After all, we learn by repetition, and Wallman does not disappoint in that department.

Wallman’s ideal reader is the sort who not only wakes up wishing for a Prada handbag, but recognizes a Prada handbag. I am not that reader, though I will confess to falling into little fits of Amazon ordering, especially when I’m snowed in and trying to stay out of my candy stash. What arrives after I have pointed and clicked and pointed and clicked some more is mostly little treasures and if they have a brand name, I hardly ever remember what it is. And they’re useful and mildly thrilling and fit into closets and drawers not yet strained to the max.

So I see no reason to quit acquiring stuff.

But I take Wallman’s point, which is to replace acquiring stuff with acquiring experiences. Here again, Wallman aims for the reader who loves to climb impossible rock ledges on islands so unheard-of, they don’t yet have luxury hotels.

I’m not that reader either. Visiting a fancy grocery store in our most uppity suburb thrills me all out of proportion.

So when Wallman calls his readers out for “keeping up with the Joneses” (7+ times), I’m like the smug lady in church who gazes levelly at the preacher, her chin held high. Not my sin.

I do, however, have a hoarding problem with notes and quotes — where to put them, where to find them when I want them. My lists of books to be read, music to be learned — this is where life is waaay out of control around here. If Wallman would like to address this particular brand of stuffocation, I welcome his thoughts, as long as he caps them off at 2000 words.

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