Why do you collect things?

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I seriously want to know because I don't understand. My husband likes to collect eagles and buffaloes. I find these little statues and paintings to be tacky and pointless and he's mercifully winnowed down his collection to a few tasteful and palatable pieces that make sense. I don't understand why anyone would collect anything.

My mother was a hoarder who couldn't throw anything away. She'd throw a hissy fit if you tried to throw anything away. This hoarding even went into keeping food long past its expiration date. My dad and I used to sneak food out of the house to get rid of it. Otherwise she'll use months expired mayo in a meal and give my dad food poisoning! I used to accept random crap just to be able to get rid of it... but then she'd look for it the next time she came over. Where's the heart shaped wooden candle holder with the painted flowers on it? You didn't throw it away, did you?! I would have taken it back if I knew you were going to just throw it away!

There's nothing in my home that doesn't have a place or a purpose. I'd feel irritated and cluttered if there was. This includes collecting items in a theme.

How do you not feel this way? How is collecting a worthwhile and interesting hobby for you? How do you keep yourself from becoming a hoarder? I'd really like to know how that works for other people.

Can anyone tell me why?

it makes me happy to look at the things i've collected. i spend time touching each one and thinking about where it came from.

open-ended sets are fun because you never have to feel like you are "done" collecting pieces. but limited edition sets are also cool because then you can get a feeling of accomplishment or completion once you have the whole set together. very satisfying.

How long does that feeling last before you feel like you just have stuff? Does it ever become stuff or is it always special?

Before we invented stuff, our survival depended on stuff. Like berries. Collecting berries. And nuts and whatnot.

Well, no, Moog. We collected berries to eat them. That's different. There may have been primitive people collecting twigs and stones because they thought they were pretty, though.

Yeah, we collected them. So you're asking why we store things?

I guess things appeal to our minds, our aesthetic sense, our interests. We store things in our heads too, bits of information and data. I guess it's that rainy day idea, things are fine now, but tomorrow might be lean, let's put some berries away for then.

interesting articles about collecting here. lots of speculation as to the reasons:

http://www.talkingclocks.net/collecting.pdf
http://www.horizonlines.org/volume4/abo ... index.html

perhaps, something like what Moog was saying, it is an ancient need that many people are still driven to fufill. like, the necessity has passed but the vestigial instinct remains. couldn't find much about it with an interwebz search, interestingly.

i thought i remembered learning that the earliest collections happen within a culture when groups of people stop migrating and become settled.

Might it have something to do with emotional attachments to objects?

Speaking from Lace-Bane in the present, he has fairly decent self control in his collecting ... unlike his past . Like I now have 3 guitars that I call my collection. I use all 3 of them though and they all have their purpose . It isn't like I just have 3 just because (I used to do that in the past and am stuck trying to get rid of a few guitars that don't see the light of day in my closet >_<). One is an acoustic, ones a SG strung with 10-52s for heavy rhythm guitar playing, and the other is a Les Paul with 10-46s for clean or lead guitar playing .

Another collection I have is of Amplifiers, but I only have two for now and they again have specific purposes and I alternate through both .

I think the cost of the things Lace-Bane would hoard prevent him from hoarding . My Les Paul cost a little over $1000 so I probably wouldn't be getting another anytime soon . but also there's a price range in my head that is tailored to how good at playing I feel I am. I currently don't think I should spend any more on a guitar than I have until I get alot better . So even though I have seen guitars I would love that cost more... I don't feel comfortable spending so much on something I'm not player worthy of playing . So the cost and making sure it's sensible help prevent hoarding .

But really, for me, there has to be a purpose to collect more of something . Even if I get another guitar some day, it will have to fulfill a purpose other than just being another to the collection . As I found out too, that since I put so much time into playing my older guitars... I still like them very much and still play them despite having a new more expensive one .

Really though, I've had collections in the past that weren't useful and they ended up getting out of hand, and now I have stuff I wish I could get rid of and feel like I can't because I don't know where to sell the stuff for about what it's really worth .

If the collection is of things that aren't just symbolic, then the stuff always stays special . Like the guitar collection I have will always have value and purpose... Lace-Bane can't say the same for his Extensive collection of magic the gathering cards he collected in high school >_>

My mothers side of the family are second generation refugee's. Refugee's tend to have hoarding tendencies. I guess if your born with nothing you kinda value everything that is "yours" if your people who are stateless and never granted citizenship in the land you inhabit. Always having the mentality that one day you might have to leave it all behind and run for your life.

My mother is a hoarder too. Our house was a tip when I was a child, and its the main reason I do my best to avoid having to live with her again. However, I like collecting things. They just have to be the right things. I mainly collect books, cds and dvds now. They all have a proper place to be, and can be nicely alphabetised. Some come in a series, and look especially nice sitting in a row.

I have other collections from my childhood that I still have. I used to collect Wade model animals. I still have them all, but most are in boxes neatly tidied away, with just a few special ones on show. What I make sure is that I don't hold on to anything I term messy or annoying. I keep one small set of drawers for photos, letters etc. But other than that I have made sure that I throw things out. I would hate to be a hoarder like my mother, but I don't see collections as hoarding. They are very specific and make me feel good, whereas the stuff my mum held on to seemed to make her feel depressed.

i forgot to address this part. i have moved at least 10 times in my adult life, and i can't haul around a lot of heavy crap. so i purge my collections every so often.

sometimes it made me quite sad, like when i disposed of of my fossil collection. or my stuffies. or my collection of construction signs that may (or may not, *cough*) have been lifted from road construction sites.

Same! I wish I had back some of the stuff I dumped in a move. Some was hard to get rid of, but I would ask myself, "Do I need this? Really?"

I don't know why I collect the things that I do except that I like them.

I'm not a hoarder and I understand your hate for clutter, I'm the same.

I collect some things because I love them . But they are not strictly decorative and they are used often. Books for instance, no matter how many I have I'm still buying. I wouldn't give up any of them because I like reading them more than once.