Against Decluttering

I’m surprised that people are surprised when I say that I’m not neat. Something about me must suggest that I’m spruce. It’s not that I eat food in my room. I clean up after myself. I just have stuff, maybe more than the average person, but I don’t think that much. I’m hygienic. But even after a spring cleaning frenzy, the clutter reaccumulates quickly, my drawers once again overflowing, my desk rendered unusable until I throw out more stuff. This task always feels like a grave violation of the contract between myself and my stuff, like separating goats from sheep, chaff from wheat, when all of it feels precious and urgent in some idiosyncratic way.