The Collector Rides Away
by Zube (zube@stat.colostate.edu)
Created:  Nov 10, 2012
Updated:  Jan 19, 2014
http://www.stat.colostate.edu/~zube/collector.txt

Baseball cards.  Music.  Video games.  Each consumed my life, sometimes
for a twinkle, other times for decades.

The outward result:  some fun, a boxcar of money spent, a pile of
continually growing stuff that had to be looked at, listened to,
played with.

The voice: C'mon.  Listen to this album now.  I don't care if
you don't want to hear it.  You don't want to *waste* it, do you?
And that game.  You spent $20 on that game.  I know it's less exciting
than setting the dial on the washing machine, but you paid for it.
You are supposed to be having fun, so have fun ... or else.

The inward result:  less security and less happiness.

The voice returns:  You need more.

I don't have the 1975 Topps Nolan Ryan card, _Cold Spring Harbor_ or
the prototype of the Atari 2600 version of _Tempest_.  How can I go on?
How can I be happy?  These things exist and other people have them,
but I do not.  Life is so freakin' unfair.

***

There are two serious problems in collecting anything of value (read:
costs money to obtain).

First, as some point during the madness, it finally dawns that the most
common stuff is already in your closet.  Each additional item costs a
significant fraction of what you have already spent.  If you continue,
the fraction quickly turns into a multiple.  Profiteers also know
a sucker when they see one.  Release the same thing in a different
format, add one additional song, make a special edition ("with an
officially-licensed Lucasfilm packet of ONION SALT"), repackage the
same stuff over and over.  The permutations are endless but your bank
account isn't.

Second, being a collector often means that your firewall is configured
for default allow instead of default deny.  The collector is less
happy than he otherwise would be because he does not have X (but, of
course, other people have it).  As soon as X is acquired, there is a
flicker of happiness (or perhaps it is just relief) and the end result
is ... a small tick in a small box.  This is quickly followed by the
thought that Y, oh yes Y, I don't have Y, but Y will make me happy.
Ad infinitum.  Ad nauseum.

Better than I could put it:

"Hofer then told how he often enjoyed asking groups of collectors which
man was happier, "he that hath a library with well nigh unto all the
world's classics, or he that hath thirteen daughters?"  The happier man,
he would then answer, is the man with thirteen daughters, "because
he knoweth that he hath enough," while the compulsive collector,
whose days are marked by "happy, as well as greedy moments," is never
satisfied.  At other times he suffers agonies of jealousy, frustration
and humiliation.  He would not be a true collector if he didn't."

I was a true collector, but I survived the disease.  I no longer
collect.  I buy what I like or think I like, give away everything
else and, best of all, I don't worry about it.  Sure, I still listen
to music and play video games, but my happiness no longer depends
upon the acquisition of item (n+1).  My life is simpler and far, 
far happier.

So goodbye, the old collector me and good riddance.