"We are archivists of the useless, and we do not expect you to understand."

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So I went out on the great internets and started reading recent commenter El Wang's blog and was immediately impressed with his most recent post about collecting.

Of course, my own personal bipolar love-hate mentality with collecting is well known but I've never put the whole "collecting thing" into such a great focused post like he did.

Collecting--being a "collector" (so much stigma in that word...)--it's not a hobby. It's a passion--sometimes, a curse. Yes, we know that that piece of plastic, molded in some other fashion, would not command nearly the price it does in its current form. We acknowledge that the price is entirely unreasonable. You know what?

We're gonna buy it anyway.

Sometimes, we'll even buy it twice!
The simple truth is that--in terms of the commercial aspect of it--we've moved beyond the need to justify it to ourselves. Collecting is often human desire at its most basic--see, want, have. We understand that the price, that the waste of money, is unreasonable. We've addressed that issue. If it is unreasonable, we simply do not reason.

We will complain, as well. We will buy things we hate, just because they are necessary for completion. We will bitch about them endlessly, we will curse their makers for shoddy product, and we will eat it up just the same. We have mastered an ability few can--we channel fanaticism, we bring it to bear in a controlled, focused manner. We simply, all else aside, will complete that goal which we've set for ourselves.

You will mock us at times, you will insult us, and we will not respond. Why? Not because we think we are above you, and not to avoid conflict, but because every time you belittle our hobby, our curse, we secretly agree with you. We will not admit it, not even to ourselves, and so we will say nothing, we will ignore your distractions. We have focus to envy the most talented athletes.

His post truly a thing of beauty. Read it.

6 Comments

Thanks for being this to my attention. How true he is.

Don't just read it, feel free to comment! I love having my writing read, critiqued, even flat out debated, and it's seriously an honor that you dedicated a post to it. Thank you!

El Wang: It is a great post.

Spoken like a true collector. Now lemme open the boxes!

Thats one way to look at it.
Here's another...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compulsive_hoarding

Awesome link Ant!!

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This page contains a single entry by Nala published on July 22, 2007 9:53 AM.

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