Meditation on Collecting Stuff
MS
This fall my 2 1/2 year old daughter became interested in Thomas the Tank Engine. The interest began as we watched some videos we found in the local public library. I bought her a basic oval track that came with Thomas and a caboose. We expanded that basic set-up little by little.. and as Christmas came around it was clear she would enjoy getting some more trains. Each item we buy comes with a small fold-out catalog (a “map” my daughter calls it). One thing she loves to do is open the catalog and discuss which trains we should get next. In the photo you can see some of the circles we made around preferred trains.
It is the first I’ve seen in her of the collecting impulse.. and it seems strong. As I look back on my life I can think of many things I collected: Star Wars figures, baseball cards, and Dylan albums come to mind. I’m currently an all purpose bibliophile, and when I have money it’s hard for me not to buy books. Since I teach at a university that impulse is somewhat justified, but maybe I was drawn to teaching in order to be so justified? I don’t know. Whatever.. collecting comes easily.
I entertain some suspicion toward this part of my personality. Where does this need to get things come from? Or as the case is now, why not be happy with my university library owning the books I need to read? But then I also think that collecting is a part of my make-up. I can see that there are good things about me that come from collecting. This is not a blog of bibliophilia, but it is the odd wisdom in old books that inspires “Old Roads.” The sense I’ve had for a long time that if I work day after day I can learn a new language or develop a skill set.. that may well go back to a sense of cultivating the self as one does a collection. So I don’t think I would strip the collector out of me, although I see the way happiness can come to depend on getting that next thing.. whatever it is.
So all these thoughts about myself go through my head as I watch my daughter begin to think about getting things. I also find myself wondering if this is just something in the personality or is it something learned in this culture. Looking through the eyes of a child I see that collecting is everywhere encouraged.. and so it must be learned to a large degree. It’s not just Thomas the Tank Engine stuff, but My Little Pony and Care Bears also come with the foldout catalog for browsing. Corporations want children to think in terms of “getting all” of some product line. But I think there’s a way that collecting can be internalized in a positive way.. accomplishment and completeness are good things.. as is order and stick-to-it-iveness. These are mental properties encouraged by collecting, it seems to me.
“Looking through the eyes of a child I see that collecting is everywhere encouraged.. and so it must be learned to a large degree.”
To that the extend that that is true, then kids have it better than adults.
Atleast kids are encouraged to actually collect (in the true sense of the word, as with your baseball cards), and then use the collection to stimulate their imagination.
Whereas we adults are encourages less to colect and more to just buy, then discard, then buy, then discard, etc…. In fact, the culture for adults actually discourages collecting of any sorts.
that’s interesting about the change from child to adult. Maybe that’s true. Especially with technology it seems that the point is to get the next thing and dump the last thing. And there are fewer incentives for books and music. I’m just thinking.. so maybe we do well to think about life more like a child collecting things?