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This week: Hoarders Too Edited by: Robert Waltz  
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Junk is the ideal product... the ultimate merchandise. No sales talk necessary. The client will crawl through a sewer and beg to buy.
-William S. Burroughs
Buy, buy, says the sign in the shop window; Why, why, says the junk in the yard.
-Paul McCartney
It's interesting to see that people had so much clutter even thousands of years ago. The only way to get rid of it all was to bury it, and then some archaeologist went and dug it all up.
-Karl Pilkington |
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In my musings about hoarding in "Hoarder and Chaos" , I deliberately left out one of the main reasons why hoarding is good. This, of course, was so I'd have something to talk about in this editorial - itself proof that hoarding is a good thing.
Things, you see, have a life cycle. It doesn't matter whether it's baubles or buildings or anything in between; the same life cycle applies.
At first, it's all shiny and new. Its allure is that it's different from what's gone before, innovative, sexy, and desirable. Stores are stocked with it, neighborhoods are stuffed with it, or dealer lots are full of it, and people come from all around and wait in line to buy it.
At some point after that - faster, it seems, now than ever before, but that could just be me getting old - it becomes junk. Stuff. Clutter. Something newer and shinier has replaced it, and it's time to throw it away, or forget about it in some closet or storage cell. Maybe it was replaced by newer technology like the iPhone, or maybe it was just a fad like Beanie Babies, or perhaps it was just a bad idea in the first place like the Snuggie. Get rid of it. No one wants it. Tear down the house, crush the car, recycle those comic books, dump the old dining room table. Make room for something new and shiny.
But then - sometime after that - magic happens. Whether out of a sense of nostalgia, a pining for the lost things of youth as with hair and unclogged arteries, or scientific research, suddenly this thing that was at first desirable, then junk, becomes precious again. That old house that's falling down on Main Street? That's a building of historical significance now, and you can't raze it. The Studebaker that's been sitting in your uncle's shed for longer than you can remember? It's an antique now. Those coins you didn't pick up on the sidewalk because you couldn't be arsed to spend that kind of energy on picking up a lowly penny? They're collectibles now. That arrowhead you tossed because it wasn't perfectly symmetrical and it might not hit the bison? Archeologists covet that now.
It doesn't matter what the thing is that I'm talking about. The life cycle is always the same. Hold onto something long enough, and it becomes worthless. Hold on a bit longer, and it becomes more valuable than unicorn tears.
Oh, there might be a few exceptions, like fresh vegetables and Creed albums, but they're few and far between.
So there you go, hoarders, a perfectly logical comeback when some busybody insists you declutter: you're waiting for all this junk to be valuable again, and simply preparing for your retirement. |
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Last time, in "Hoarder and Chaos" , I began this discussion of hoarding.
Mummsy  : Now see . . . that's why we should just all throw away our tvs!  Then no one on the tv can tell us to throw away our stuff. Or sell us more stuff.
Now, Mumsy, you know you can't just "throw away" a TV. You have to call the EPA and have them come out in bunny suits to carefully dismantle it and give the pieces to a "modern" "artist" for the creation of some abstract thing that the artist says represents "the disharmony of humanity and machines, and the struggle for bonobo rights" and the rest of us think is a piece of junk.
brom21  : I think hoarding things is good in some instances. What people call penny pinching can be financial conservation. This is compared with most people do when they get their paychecks (besides paying bills) is to blow it all. I am of the former. I’ve always been a saver. There may be a reoccurrence of the 1929 catastrophe so buying gold as a defense may not be all that crazy. I liked this newsletter very much. Did you ever bet your drill back?
Gold, in the face of Armageddon, may not be worth the paper it's written on. And I think I'll hoard the secret of the drill.
Ren the Klutz!  : So what happened with the drill? I hate it when you leave us hanging! lol
Tune in next time for the secret of the drill! Maybe.
Elfin Dragon-finally published : This newsletter is SO true. I've been trying to keep some stuff that I have in storage and my folks are trying to get me to get rid of it when I know if I do I'll just want another one later. Sometimes it is better to keep what you already have. Even if you are labeled a hoarder.
Sometimes I feel like letting it all go and living as an ascetic at the top of a mountain somewhere, and making people come to me for advice. But that's too much work, so I keep my stuff and continue to live in a city.
Quick-Quill  : Because I am a nester, I have things around me that are important to me. I've watched hoarders. When I began my novel I had a lot of questions to answer. One was: "Who would Matt come to a knowledge of his grandmother and the fact that she was never talked about?" His Uncle is a hoarder and Matt has received a clean-up order. Here is wehre he finds his grandmother's letters. Not before he has to clean his Uncle's house and deal with all the things hoarders deal with. When peopel read this they realize there is a little of this and its polar opposite in all of us.
Read The Vanishing of Katherine Sullivan by Christina Weaver (all ereader versions $2.99)
Some things are important to me. Some things it's just important that I keep other people from having. And- hey, wait, did you just sneak an AD into my newsletter? Cheeky brat...
River : I loved this newsletter, and I laughed all the way through. There is so much truth here. I come from a family of hoarders so I have to be very careful, especially since I live in a 3 room apartment! I tend to give things I don't want to people who need and don't have that thing, or sell it t a garage sale. Very good point about FB. I have seen that happen - never advertise you're going to be away!
Or at least be like, "Going to Vegas for a week. Letting the local motorcycle club crash at my place while their bar is being renovated."
And that's it for me for July! See you next month, and until then,
LAUGH ON!!!
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Comedy: July 29, 2015 Issue [#7127]
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