The Reason We Amass Things?

The director Judd Apatow once bought a home gym. After using it three or four times, he stopped lifting weights and the gym fell into disuse. He didn’t get rid of it, however. It still sits in a corner of his office where it functions as a storage room cum clothes hanger. Apatow tells himself that it could be used one day. As he puts it “ … anything’s possible. All hoarding is hope. You think ” I can’t die because I have to watch that stack of DVDs! Makes you feel immortal, having too much stuff.”

Really? For a moment I thought that Apatow might have hit upon something. But , upon further consideration, my reaction is ” Nah!”

I have a friend who has 5,000 records and CDs. He is retired now and is busy cataloging his collection and , of course, listening to his favorite songs over and over again. Another friend is at once a bibliophile, a film buff  and a music lover. In his house he has a large loft, three walls of which have shelves containing his collection of books ( many of them autographed by the authors) and CDs and DVDs. He admitted to me that there is no way he could possibly read, listen or view his entire collection. Once in a while ,he may dip into this or that but his chief pleasure is in owning that collection and knowing that he can access it whenever he wants. I myself had a large collection of books ( particularly cookbooks) before I gave half of it away to an acquaintance. What remains is still sizeable and I have no illusions that I will read all those books again or cook one tenth, one-hundredth of those recipes. I like having those things around because of the pleasure of possession.

A good friend of mine put it perfectly. He said” I have boxes and boxes of stuff, most of which means something only to me. These things are not valuable but I will never get rid of them. One day, when I am gone, my son and daughter will go through the things in my garage , then call the junk man and have them hauled away. That’s OK but, as along as I’m around, I want them.”