Not meant as a judgement or divisive topic or a bonfire... really me thinking out loud to me but would enjoy reading other's stories and thoughts and rationalizations on it.
I've got two wrists but only use one for a watch at a time and yet own many watches. I own 12 bicycles but only two pair of hands & feet and one ass to sit on only one bike at a time. I own enough bike parts, both old & new, to open a bike shop but seldom sort through them when I need to repair any bike I currently ride and instead buy another new part for that repair because "fυck it, it's easier than shifting through bins and sucking up however many hours looking for what I need".
I own, at least, 30 pairs of shoes and outside of maybe eight pairs of them that are specific in purpose (walking, cycling, hot or cold weather) they just sit in a closet.
No, I don't have shit stacked everywhere -- are house is clean and organized.
As such I started looking at psychological studies on Collecting and the very human disposition towards it.
Collecting definitely ain't new or unheard of as we all know.
Magazines, stamps, cars, watches, shoes, hats, depression era glass, Hummel's, guns, beer cans... humans love gathering shit to look at and research.
Much of what I read states that it very closely borders on hoarding, a need for control and order - an offset of or closely related relative to OCD.
One thing that struck me... many sources say that Collecting isn't Hoarding as long as the Collector keeps their collection of whatever "tidy" vs the Hoarder and their fleet of whatever being "everywhere" and "overrunning their home". Seems like an rather odd and oversimplification of the two conditions.
To me, unto me, my watches and shoes and bikes and bike parts seem perfectly normal... until someone outside of me & my brain asks about them. Even innocently asked I feel weird justifying it. The topic always makes me not so much defensive as self-deprecating and making fun of myself - perhaps that's another form of being defensive? Don't know.
I do know this... I absolutely adore, admire and love folks who own one of something and use the shit out of it.
I think what spawned all this was the fella who recently posted about his Speedmaster and all the use he's given it. I loved that so much it started me thinking about how ridiculous I am/this is.
Is it...
Status?
Hoarding?
Control?
Fear of committing to just one thing?
Collecting?
Innocent enjoyment gone unchecked?
Just innocent enough?
My wife, for instance, raised dirt poor (I'm talking absolutely nothing, shit side of the tracks for her childhood, messed up family, never a pot to piss in... but smart and independent as a whip -- formulated a practical plan out of it through a solid, heavily employable, career that would make her some money, never need to return to poverty yet also help humanity -- Registered Nursing)... she's fine with what I do, definitely makes fun of it (marriage), yet will not be saddled down with "Things". If I buy her a pair of shoes and she didn't need a new pair she either returns the gift or donates the current pair. I've tried to get her "into" watches... I bought her a Rolex, she wanted it returned and gone immediately. "It's not who I am darling. I need to wear a watch not have it wear me. I will worry too much about the price of what's on my wrist to ever ignore it and get on with work at the hospital. Thank you but no thank you." But she loves the $250 dollar Seiko diver I got her after the Rolex went back.
Her favorite phrase for nearly everything is, "Oh, mine still works. No need but thank you." And I feel like a total dick as a result of it while I continue to look, think, hunt and balance our finances against what I can get and can't get.
Her two single extravagant crutches (if I could even call them that at all)... she loved olives as a child (nothing exotic either... green olives, pimentos stuffed inside them, in a jar) but her family of six couldn't afford them. She had them at church and at the neighbors but never at home. And cheese. She was raised on fake government cheese but occasionally would have something that wasn't surplus when at the neighbors...
to this day our fridge always has two jars of standard cocktail olives and a block of any type of cheese from any manufacturer as long as it isn't generic. The two jars and block might never even get opened but there they sit. I respect that even though one could opine that that's wasteful.
Our daughter, when young and not knowing the backstory, would make fun of it. I told her the story (my wife seldom revisits her childhood in conversation) and now our daughter makes sure the two jars and block are never touched by her.
I think it's symbolic, the olives and cheese, to my wife that she overcame her childhood and succeeded.
I can afford the watches I currently own, perhaps even a few more before I would need to start selling some I don't wear that often, but I'm starting to think the watches are wearing me... and it's something I am not comfortable with.
Anyway, just some outward rambling.
