The Inferior Collector

Everything on earth has its own purpose. Everything has its own story and can be a part of someone's memory.

 Are you a collector? Do you have the habit of keeping anything for future reference or usage? Why do people collect things?

Today I will be talking about collections or things I keep. Brace yourselves for this post will be longer than usual.

The word collector has some connotations with obsession and wealth. Some rich people collect art masterpieces, paintings or old items. For some reason they want to invest their money on these things. They feel personal pleasure in collecting such things because it becomes their passion.

These days some crypto enthusiasts collect digital items or files thru Non-fungible token or simply NFT. I don’t know about what’s going on with that trend but some people are investing in it. Some also would just collect and collect coins, like BCH for example-holding or mostly known as HODL. I have to cash out my BCH earnings to support our financial needs. If I am holding all of the BCH I earned here from when I started, I think I have already accumulated 3BCH in my digital wallet.

See related post: Unnoticed Achievement - 2 BCH

A collector in my own interpretation without looking into a reference is a person who collects anything depending on his interest. Collecting Marvel superheroes toys for example or in the 80s and 90s some people collect stamps which they consider as a hobby.

Collector also can be interpreted in some ways like a person’s job. If you work as a garbage collector, then you are indeed a collector of waste and delivered to the disposal area. Some people hate tax collectors, I wonder why.

Collecting something as a hobby doesn’t require much money. You need not have to be wealthy to collect something as a passion. Although some people collect weird and unnecessary things.

I am also fond of collecting things. I love collecting Hollywood films. I have collected so many pirated DVDs of movies from my favorite Hollywood actors when DVDs were trending. I collected hundreds of them that I just threw away because the disc expired.

Last year my 1TB storage device full of movies I collected was broken so now I only have two 500G full of my selected favorite films. Along with these films I have collected are MP3s. I just love collecting music in MP3 format from different artists and genres. It’s funny that I haven’t not listen to some of them. I just want to collect and have them sit in my storage device for a long time and counting.

Electronic Enthusiast

I have knowledge in electrical and electronics so whenever a device or appliance in our house is broken I don’t just throw them away if they can't be fixed. I keep the electronic components and other parts that can be used as a spare. So I have collected a bunch of electronic boards at home from my broken cell phone, cell phone charger, computer mouse, TV, laptop/PC and any electronic components that can be used in the future.

These extracted components from broken gadgets are very useful for repairing other devices that needs to replace broken components. One good thing about having knowledge in technology is that it will save you money from bringing your device/appliance to service centers.

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Sometimes when I feel that they are already too many that there is no room for them in my storage box, I will throw them away. The funny thing was that when I had almost cleared all the components I felt no longer useful, there comes also the time that I will be needing it.

I guess another reason why I do this is because I am just living an average life. Rich people may not think of bringing their appliances/gadgets to the service center when it breaks. Why will they waste money for repairs when they can just purchase a new one? Unless it contains confidential data then they will not dare to dispose it.

I have a family friend. The husband is a businessman and the wife is a lawyer. I can say that they are living a high standard quality of life. When a device or appliance in their home is broken, they immediately buy a replacement. I never saw them go to the service center for repairs.

Collecting and Keeping

People have different reasons why they keep something, whether keeping things for collection or keeping things secret.

We all have secrets that we keep. Some are personal dark secrets while others are information about other people. Secrets are like things that we collect. They become burden and sometimes we would just want to disclose them just like disposing of things we collect that we no longer need. Or that it just consumes space in our room and become useless.

In the past I used to write about my dreams. I wrote them the moment I woke up. So I have completed two journal notebooks written with collections of all my dreams. Today I rarely do that practice. I only write and collect dreams that are really strange and I think need attention.

I also held grudges when I was younger. This habit is more like collecting people who treated me badly. I kept their names and faces in my head. I know this is a bad habit because it is unhealthy emotions that will result in negative effects in our psychological aspect of life.  Sometimes I think of revenge and would imagine punishing the person in my mind. By doing so, there is a feeling of satisfaction in me. But I have never done revenge for real to someone who has hurt me or harassed me.

When I was working in the Middle East I collected a small amount of sand. I put it in a jar and brought it home as a souvenir. I want to do the same if I have the opportunity to travel in the future. I just find it cool.

I also traded 100 Peso bill to a coworker Indian with 100 Rupee. Other things I kept and collected are old coins and foreign currency.

Some people collect friends. I also do that but then keep those who are worthy people. It’s funny these days that some social media users collect people as friends even if they don’t know them personally. Having thousands of people on your social media friends list doesn’t make you a friendly person.

Eventually it became collecting

When I started to own a cellphone with a camera I saved all the photos I had captured to my external hard drive along with my movies and MP3 collections. When I tried to view them I just realized that I have collected a bunch of senseless photos while I am experimenting to be a photographer. But I don’t delete them because I want them to be still there in the future so that when I grow old I have those things to reminisce and recall. I even uploaded some of them to my cloud drive so as to make sure that they are safe. You know external storage devices have the chance to be broken at any time so if you want to save your collection of files, you should try saving them to the cloud drive.

In the company I am currently working at, it appears that I am in the process of collecting again. Being one of the timekeepers, I collect the schedules of employees, consolidate and send them to the payroll department. It’s funny that this has never been my interest. I never expected that I would be dealing with this type of work which very is far from my chosen career. Somehow I realized that maybe this is really where I should be. 

See related post: How Important Is Unimportant

While I was creating this article I just noticed that I have enumerated several things I keep and collect. It appears that this is another collection of collections. I just find it fun to share with you how I collected things that may seem weird to some of you. I know there are people who collect weirder things than I do. But if you search the internet for people who collect weird things you may find many of them. Consider Manfred S. Rothstein was one of the weirdest people who collected 675 back scratchers from 71 countries. Or David Morgan who owns 137 different traffic cones and is known to be the largest owner of the said item. How about Carol Vaugn who has a collection of more than 5,000 soap bars from around the world.

The Reason

People have different reasons for collecting things or whatever. Some of them started as just for fun until they embraced it as a passion. While some spend their savings just to add something to their collection. Although we may think of why some people collect weird things and stuff like that. The reason could be that they find pleasure in collecting those things that they, themselves can only appreciate its beauty. Like me for example, who loves to keep things from the past especially in my childhood. There is a feeling of nostalgia when I hold things from the past. I wanted to connect to it because during those times life is meaningful. Even if we live in poverty it doesn’t define the true meaning of life in the past. We live happier with my fellow kids because there is more physical socialization than what it is today where life is more like living in the virtual world.

See related post: I Went To The Future, Believe Me

I know you also have personal collections and some of them might be weirder than mine or than any other keeper. There is nothing wrong with that because it is our own personal preference. Although some people steal things for their collection. Remember that if we will have to collect something make sure we have enough room for them. Collecting something as a passion needs time and devotion.

I don’t consider myself a real collector of any valuable things as shown in the book of records. Those things are not really collecting like the MP3s I have in my drive. I just realized that over time I have saved them for almost ten years so I just keep on adding the MP3s I have downloaded to my collection.

Anyway I hope you don’t find this article so boring and forgive me if you did not expect it to be this long. But moving forward I will be posting articles longer than I used to do in my previous posts. I no longer have any other means to consume my free time these days other than fixing household stuff, going out for groceries and cashing out and playing online games with my kids.

I guess I have to end this writing for now as it is getting nonsense to some of you. So, what are the things you collect or keep? Share in the comment. Who knows, you may have been collecting weird things like mine for a long time.

 Thanks for reading. Ciao!

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To all those who support, Thank you!

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Lead image source

Reference: Weirdest collection of things ever.