Lyle's Blog

Physical hoarding of whatever a person fancies stems currently from an economy that thrives on consumerism. An overabundant life of material acquisition creates in many a narcissistic fetish for an unwillingness to let go of one’s money or the things it can buy.

People hoard all sorts of worthless junk, even garbage, and the fool who is ensnared by this mental illness becomes overwhelmed by the heaps of trash they’ve accumulated. Like everything in our modern era, these addictions are based on mindless dedication to human rights. If it feels “good”, do it. You have the right as an American citizen to be a mind-numbed idiot.

The Depression of the 1930s created an atmosphere of poverty so great that wasting anything became a sin and everything was saved because the likelihood that you would have the funds to replace it where pretty slim. There was never enough of anything and necessary hoarding was common. My parents suffered through those years. They, like many others, started their marriage living in a chicken coop. Kinda gives a whole new perspective on “first-time homebuyer” doesn’t it.

It seems odd that hoarding can become commonplace whether it’s from scarcity or abundance but it proves that people are much the same, rich or poor, tough times or good times. So hoarding trashbags or piles of cash is the same for everyone, a waste of effort and a waste of our most valuable possession, time.

Hoarding today has taken on a new form. Technology has ushered in this new world of nonstop accumulation of digital garbage. I’m talking about emails, pictures, videos, and everything else the “screen” says is important. I myself have thousands of emails. Over time they’ve just kind of sneaked up on me. After all, we’re only aware of the thirty or so shown on the current page. The others are “there” but behind the curtain so to speak, waiting in the wings just in case we need them.

Photos, don’t get me started on photos; OK, I’m starting myself but I”ll constrain myself somewhat because the frustration of downloading, storing, and messing with these indispensable records of “history” is mind-boggling. The software manufacturers are continually improving their products and in doing so seem to alienate me from the process, making me resentful of having less control of even the basic things I want to do. Organize my pictures and decide where to put them? How I used to do it three operating systems ago just wasn’t good enough; nope the gremlins at Microsoft, just like the people who design banking websites, can’t leave well enough alone. New, improved; like I want to spend more time figuring out how to do something I already knew how to do.

Fifty thousand pictures and still we take more. It’s like relentlessly riding a merry-go-round. At first, we were riding the horse of our choosing and the excitement of the first digital pictures was truly amazing. But now our listless bodies lie crumpled in that bench provided for grandma so she can watch her grandchildren’s antics and excitement over and over again.

But to be honest, will we ever look at many of those “treasured” shots? We don’t. Oh, we spend much time screwing with the download/storing fiasco but actually little time perusing thru the thousands of pictures that we just must save at all costs. Fifty thousand divided by 365 days amounts to a mere 137 pictures a day. We could do that, just skip a half hour of TV. Oh, wait, videos, the videos, we can’t watch 137 in a day unless we do and nothing else gets done.

Everything we have, physical, digital, or make-believe, will all go in the trash when we die. If we have children it’s unlikely they will value the same things we do. Maybe a memento or two, maybe; we fool ourselves if we think any of the things we’re saving can actually be kept especially things that we saved in the great unknown.