Am I buying stuff or pretending to be someone else?

I'm writing this to distract myself from the itch to buy "stuff". In my case, I'm fairly sure this is good ole American consumerism mixed in with neurodiversity and maybe some fantastical thinking. 

I live in a house full of stuff. Stuff that I needed, stuff that I wanted, stuff that I thought was a good idea to buy for that possible need someday, stuff that I probably have no idea that I own stuffed in a box somewhere. Yet here I sit, staring at a cart page that beckons me to check out with a siren call unlike any other. And recently, I've been finding myself wanting to break free from its grips.

Well, let me back up a bit. I say that I want to be free of it. And rationally, that is the case. I have seen the effects of hoarding in the lives of loved ones and how it affects the people around them. I know that all sort of unmet needs, personality traits, or other issues can be transformed into a "buying this is gonna fix me" complex. I've read a book or two on minimalism and have watched countless YouTube videos about the ownership tax and how at some point we are owned by our things. That led me to the decision of wanting to work towards replacing items as they're worn out with buy-it-for-life items or long-term buys instead of quick and cheap. Right now, that notion also just feels like consumerism with a different mask on. It's like a little reward for not buying something that I don't need right then rather than fulfilling an actual need when the time comes. I get to spend time researching and fantasizing about what's worth the investment. So, am I really even doing something different or have I just found a more socially acceptable version of it?

Now, of course, neurodivergence plays a part but if I'm honest, it's probably smaller than I'm willing to admit. I will always think "Yeah, I need a reusable bag, that's a good idea.", forgetting that I already have five bags stored in my house, my car, my boyfriend's car, probably stuffed in a closet as well. I also will find myself in the algorithm of how to make your house ADHD-friendly which seems to always end up with affiliate links in the description. I'm not insinuating that the creators are being anything worse or different than other cogs in the consumerism machine.

Even funnier is that this amassing hoard of things isn't limited to the physical realm for me. I also tend to stuff my Kindle with hundreds of books that sound good at the time but I'll never have time to read. I think "ooh, that's a good book, I'll add it to the list." and send it to the dusty dungeons of my TBR, probably never to be seen from again. My current TBR on Goodreads is in the 2,000s at the moment. Another project I have going on is going through the hundreds of titles and attempting to be as cutthroat as possible to make it reasonable again.

The longer I sit here, the more that I think that I am giving myself something to aspire to. If I add another book to my TBR, I'm buying into a fantasy of becoming a person who has read that book or absorbs that knowledge. If I buy another notebook while the pile of empty notebooks gathers dust on my desk, I'm buying into the idea of becoming someone who consistently journals. If I buy that cleaning gadget, I'm pretending that the reason my house is cluttered because I haven't found that one thing to keep me on task instead of building a sustainable system. I like to pretend that the things separating me from these aspirational identities are external and using these things gives me the opportunity to pretend.

I'm not sure what the answer to this quandary is. I know I should be able to want things and that's pretty reasonable. But, maybe I need to become better at understanding what I'm reaching for when I find myself scrolling through a stationary website. Is it really the pretty pens or is it a possibility that I may never actualize?