Several years ago, I briefly began collecting hockey cards for the first time in almost 25 years. It was a flashback to middle school, to simpler times (but with a larger budget), and while it was a lot of fun and brought back some good memories, the fun faded pretty quickly, and I ultimately decided that I did not want to continue.
Why? Well…collecting kind of sucks.
I’m not saying there is anything wrong with collecting, but the pleasure comes from acquisition much more than it does from ownership. What you end up with is something that takes up a fair amount of space that doesn’t get used, doesn’t particularly spend any time being enjoyed, and which often becomes something of a liability when there are better things you can do with your time, money, and space.
When I was a kid, I had $10 to spend every week, and that roughly translated to 3 packs of cards, or perhaps one or two fancy packs. I loved opening the cards and organizing everything by number. It was a real dopamine hit when I got something new that helped me toward the completion. It was fun. But as an adult, I kind of understand how this works now, and I also know that all the special series and bonus cards are designed such that the whole collection can never be completed, and such that finding something truly rare is always at the back of your mind. Some of that is even somewhat diminished by the fact that you can jump on ebay and buy the whole lot if you so choose, but the game is deliberately designed to be kind of addictive. I would still defend it as a hobby (and there is far worse you can spend your time and money on), but I don’t really enjoy playing these games anymore, especially since I know they are rigged against me.
(If I’m being honest, part of the fun was also the fact that my dad would drive me to the card store, too. I may not have fully recognized that when I was a kid, but thinking back now, it’s different when you’re grown up and drive yourself to one of the very few stores that still sell cards and plop down adult money for them. I don’t know, I don’t think I could really get the magic back without the relationship I had with my dad at that time in my life, just saying)
Several years back, I also collected some antique mining catalogs. That was fun. I scanned them and put them online, my humble contribution to the historical record. But they are also sitting in storage right now, doing nothing. If I won the lottery, I suppose I might be tempted to buy a victorian house loaded with old bookshelves from a time long past, and live out some colonial exploration dream based on old stories of far away places and intrigue, but I don’t think that’s ever going to happen. (Also…easier said than done). I don’t buy those books anymore, and except for one last book that I hope someday to scan, I don’t think I will ever have the patience to scan more.
In more recent times, Fortnite made a killing this season when they put collectible “sprites” into the game, each type offering a different power to advantage players in a variety of ways, with different colors to represent different levels of rarity. It was a lot of fun at first, until I realized that some sprites were incredibly rare, but offered nothing truly meaningful to the game. You can “lose” them, too, in a sense, so people mostly don’t play with them for the abilities they give you, just to collect and upgrade them. It really defeats half of the system they tried to introduce. Epic apparently discovered that offering occasional day-long events during which rare sprites become more common is an easy way to grease people into logging in, playing, and (probably) spending money in the Fortnite store. I realized this was a technique as old as fucking time, and that I would probably never complete the collection without extensive “trading” with people who dedicate enormous amounts of time to the game, so I kind of gave up. Not content to let the hype die down, they keep releasing new levels of rarity, so the checklist keeps expanding.
(The whole checklist phenomenon is part of why I don’t play many video games these days. Yes, checklists have existed in games for a long time, but modern games really take these into overdrive. Games stop being truly fun, and what many end up offering is nothing more than artificial accomplishments. I’m not anti-game, I just remember older games being more fun and less ‘checklist’)
So…I don’t know. Collecting is kind of awful, at least if you really get sucked into it. I just needed to write out my thoughts on it, even though I think I’ve written some of these down before.
But I guess before I wrap this up, a lot of this gets me thinking about life in general and what I hope to get out of it. I’m reminded that my parents are still around and I’d love to see them again this year, maybe even this summer. I’m reminded that friends are a huge blessing, and sometimes alcohol can be a good thing. The time to apply for jobs is nearly here – I can feel it – and my days may look very different soon. So…there are a lot of good things to focus on in life, and I really don’t think collecting stuff makes the cut.
(this also reminds me that I have more thoughts to write up on minimalism, too)