I love this topic! I read her book at least six times and never made these connections. Also, I had some of the same qualms, particularly about her glee over generating bags of garbage, which are set free to continue their spiritual journey in…where, exactly? (COME ON.)

However. My dad was a hoarder who left behind an entire house of garbage, which I ended up gathering and discarding. So I’m sympathetic to her points that (1) precious items are rare, and (2) sooner or later, we must all deal with our junk — or make someone else do it. Those vintage ski t-shirts sound cool, but the dad didn’t ever deal with them, did he? He left them for someone else to figure out.

I don’t think her book is at odds with the ethos of the museum and the archive. Instead I see strong currents of Buddhism, especially in her emphasis on the present as the only reality that exists and her acceptance of impermanence as a fundamental quality of the human condition. If museums aren’t only repositories of the past, but also containers for the present, then the conflict vanishes. The real problem, she’s telling us, isn’t that we have too much stuff, but that we don’t know ourselves. Objects can help us wake up and discover who we are.