Do you feel sorry for objects?

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yes! i still do now for certain things (especially my teddy, at 30 years old i still have to tell my bf to respect him..) but i remember being little and feeling really bad for fallen leaves when it snowed. i would put them between my gloves to "warm them up" because they would be covered in snow and ice. i legit would feel so bad for them, they were freezing! i would also feel bad for toys at the toy store if they were the only one of their kind left and i would try to convince my mom to buy them for me. if she would refuse i would cry for the rest of the day for that poor, lonely toy. she would think i was crying because i didnt get what i wanted but i just really felt bad for that toy.

I do feel sorry for objects. I have ever since I was very young, in fact.

I mostly feel sorry for stuffed animals and toys, especially ones that I see have been rejected at yard sales or left on roadsides, or are ripped, dirty, or are missing button eyes. Every time I see a stuffed animal or toy with flaws, I feel the need to take it home so I can fix it and give it the home it might not otherwise have because anyone else would see it as "broken" and not worth caring for. That's just how people are; especially the "normal" ones. I think it has to do with how my self esteem has pretty much always been in the crapper and I see myself as "broken" too, so my adopting bedraggled stuffed animals and repairing them is sort of a "wish fulfillment" for me - that is, maybe someday I would find the one person who would be able to "fix" me, too.

....It's probably no coincidence that one of my favorite cartoons is "Doc McStuffins."

To combine two other people's observations, I feel bad for tech that is outdated & deemed, "useless". So, I save what I can and re-purpose it or find it a new home. As an adult I'd rationalized it as being Eco-conscious. But this thread reminded me that I've done it for decades and under it all is the knowledge I've felt since I was a child. I feel bad for them because they will hurt when they are left out, no longer wanted & abandoned. Every now and then I clean out what I've collected and take what really cannot be re-purposed to a recyclers, telling the objects that their materials will live on in other tech. It helps, a little.

But I by far prefer to give it to artists or give it new life myself if I can. It's what originally pushed me into becoming a geek girl decades ago. My first computer was one I soldered together from parts of others b/c my school was going to throw it out. I couldn't let it happen, I'd seen it atop a cabinet for years. It's also how I learned that many of today's devices can become still relevant single taskers with a little knowledge, research and custom firmware. On my closet-workbench is my favorite, a 2004 device that originally let you attach a thumb-drive to your network. It's now a tiny little Linux server that feeds live Geiger-counter data to a tracking website. She's been super reliable and hasn't failed once since 2011.

I do the same with shells, rocks, some 'found objects' and paper (and twist-ties). The hard part is to not horde or build clutter, but I figure if I did I'd be an irresponsible custodian. It helps & now I just appear quirky and creative.

I'm quite inspired by the people here who've thought to re-purpose old things. Perhaps I should do something creative with those old shirts I can't bring myself to throw out...

When relationships with objects sour:

Basil Fawlty falls out with his car (comedy show clip):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=78b67l_yxUc

Sigh. Know what I did last weekend for relaxation? I took a whole pile of old computer parts and put them together into systems. Even complete, they're older generation, somewhat obsolete & use more electricity than current systems. But they are now complete and up and running.

Why?

Because that was supposed to be their purpose. They just looked...sad & dejected, once proud pieces thrown into boxes waiting to be disposed of at the recycling center. And then, we had to clear out our old I.T. room at work so I was able to pick up the missing bits for nothing.

When I was a child, I saw a movie...a foreign Sci-Fi film, IIR. In it, a robot built/rebuilt itself from parts it found in the garbage chute it woke up in. And in a book from when I was roughly the same age, a small boy did something similar (precursor to Annikin & C3PO by a decade or two, the child built/rebuilt his robot from junkyard bits & pieces). Ever since then, discarded or obsolete tech calls to me to rebuild and repurpose it. On the bright side, it helps at work when there is an emergency...

Yep, I've definitely had this experience, but mostly through childhood. Nowadays, I mostly feel compassion for insects, or unlovable creatures like slugs, or worms. Sometimes I even leave wasps alone and don't step on them because I feel like I should let them live and enjoy the little bit of life that they have. After all, they don't sting me so long as I mind my own business.

I was poking a spider web the other day to see how the spider would react. Then I felt bad for the spider because I broke it's web up, and I thought about the fact that the little creature had worked so hard for hours spinning that web. I have a history of saving animals from certain doom. I rescued a pigeon with a broken wing who was in the middle of a busy highway. I caged him, and took him to an SPCA location, so they could make him all better.

Feeling sorry for objects is probably one of the main reason I was such a pack rat as a kid, and my bed was littered with stuffed animals (that was also for security). I think I counted 21 stuffed toys, including stuffed walrus, purple dragon, bears, even a huge stuffed boa constrictor snake toy. Don't forget the pink Popple, and Pound Puppy! Yeah, definitely an 80's child.

Here's a picture of that Popple:
Yeah, that's exactly how mine looked!

^ Yes! I have so many stuffed animals it's not even funny. I don't know what to do with them all because I can't very well abandon them. I'm pretty sure we have a Popple sitting somewhere in the house but it wasn't mine so I'm not sure what happened to it (it's probably feeling very betrayed right now ). I also tend to give insects and animals like that extra love because of all the hate they get from people I know. Any insects that enter the house get put back outside if I find them! Though I admit I have killed mosquitoes because I get concerned about the potential of contracting a disease from one. Even then, I still feel terrible and say a little 'I'm sorry' to them as I remove their remains. My family comes first though.

Worms and slugs are cute! I don't know why they're so unlovable to some people.

this is why I'm a horder of things. I live in a college town and when the rich kids go home they throw away everything in their apartments because it's easier to throw it away and buy more stuff later than keep the perfectly good stuff they already have. I donate things a lot and my house is getting to a point where I don't have too much redundant stuff anymore. I can't help myself, when I see an object that still could have a fulfilling life on its way to a landfill i feel so sad.

I do really believe that objects have their own sentience that is just hard for animals like us to understand. like people tend to think that we make the objects for us as the controllers of the objects, but I think that objects have an equal amount of control over making us.

Yes! ive come close to crying over stupid stuff. like a product in a store i couldnt see anyone buying. it made me very very sad.

At the supermarket a few days ago I picked up an onion and put it in the bag, then saw a bigger and rounder one, which I swapped for the first onion. Then I felt sorry for the rejected one and put that in the bag as well. I do this sort of thing all the time....