Clutter mutter

About a month ago, I saw an article in Sunset magazine (?) about a family who has pared everything down in their house to the point of having like a handful of trash every year. How anyone with 2 boys does that is beyond me.  Does this mean that Target is not a part of this mom's life?  Where does she go to relax? A yoga class????  Forget the fact that they started doing this because some friends lost everything in a fire is a little odd.  I don't want to live my life worried that my house is going to burn down- though when I was a kid I REALLY wanted one of those chain ladders for outside my windows just in case we had a fire.  Never mind that we lived in a one story house at the time and the drop from my window to the ground was all of about 3 feet.
What I have been obsessing about since I saw this article was the fact that these people had almost nothing in their house. There house was groovy and modern and so cccclean. I want that. Their whole philosophy was that they want to LOVE everything they have.  They keep their photos in an album that they take out a couple times a year and look at. No photos out on surfaces. They have a limited wardrobe with just essentials. How does anyone NOT have 73 t shirts?  The amount of time I spend picking crap up and dusting useless objects makes me crazy and no matter what I do I just CAN'T seem to thin it out.  These people get ALL their books at the library. We must have about 1000 books. I try to get rid of some.....but my art books...can't get rid of those...and my gardening books, no way,  classic children's books. nope. It is just a losing proposition.  Also...if we DON'T have books don't we seem like illiterate boring people? Clutter.  I can't stand it.
I spent about 4 hours in the garage today.  Other then feeling like a big wad of spiderwebs, I'm not feeling I really got rid of enough.
So Midlife crisis is about NEEDing and wanting change. I feel like I need to purge all this extraneous stuff and literally kick it to the curb.  I live in an area where there are a bunch of low income apartment buildings so I am constantly putting treasures outside-  bags of clothes, books, furniture.  I put out a little table and chair set that was the kids and it was gone in, seriously, under 5 minutes.  No, I am not a hoarder. I don't think I am even close- but the clutter, the small amount of clutter is enough to make my midlife crisis self want to chew the arms off my aeron chair. Don't get me started on the pile of paper on my desk. What to do? What to do?
I googled "clutter" to see if I could get some tips.  Here are a couple:

Optimize vertical storage: Instead of trying to use every square inch of your floor space, use vertical storage. Shelving, book shelves, and vertical storage solutions will help you gain more floor space and keep everything in plain eye sight.

My translation- If you have MORE shelves you can have MORE stuff! And if you have more stuff YEAH! you CAN become a hoarder. And everything in plain sight? More visual chaos is grrrrrreat for the soul.

Imagine how great you will feel: Have you ever walked into a clean room and then right into a cluttered room? Even though you think it may not affect you, try living in the cluttered space for days and weeks at a time. You will find you are less productive, more irritable and less likely to want to spend meaningful time in the space. Try it.

My thoughts; This person is a jackass and assumes I am too. Shut the fuck up and come clean my house bitch.

The best I saw was someone who called clutter "a decision delayed".  Rather then go through the mail immediately we put it down and then do it again.  Pretty soon there is a pile. makes sense right? Why not just through the 90% of it that is junk away then and there? what it takes 26 seconds and saves your eyes from the visual mess later right?
If you are trying to declutter and need some fairly decent advice that doesn't talk to you like you are an idiot- I thought this site was pretty decent-
organized home

Maybe I WILL be as uncluttered as the family in the magazine.  But I just can't give up Target....
and just so you know HOW neurotic I actually am- Here is a picture of my living room on a really good day. Not THAT cluttered but more then I want it to be.  Imagine how it looks after the kids have been in there for a couple hours.  Puzzle pieces, cars, stuff I am unable to define.

Maybe a clutter free home is a clutter free mind?
Something to ponder in my cluttered head.