Here’s a picture of Grover as a firefighter.
So this is the point, I guess, that I’m trying to make about Collecting — that the very act of creating a new subcategory is in and of itself a satisfying experience for me as a Collector.
Here’s a picture of Ernie as a police officer.
I mean, when you get right down to it, the only difference between a Collection and your average random assortment of artifacts is the intentionality behind the Collection — the fact that these particular objects have been assembled as variations on a specific, coherent theme. And that, I think, sheds some light on the fundamental satisfaction at the heart of the Collecting Impulse.
Here’s a picture of Cookie Monster and Big Bird as firefighters.
So let’s say, for instance, that you collect toys of Sesame Street characters dressed like police officers and firefighters.
Here’s a picture of Bert as a police officer.
The thing that’s interesting and pleasurable about this Collection, at least for me as a Collector, isn’t necessarily the individual objects in and themselves — it’s the very act of selection, of noticing that there are toys of Sesame Street characters dressed like police officers and firefighters, and then actively choosing to seek them out and group them together as a Collection.
Here’s a picture of Kermit as a firefighter.
So then the whole point of Collecting isn’t really amassing individual objects — which just naturally happens anyway as the inevitable consequence of living one’s life — no, the whole point of Collecting is the particular pleasure involved in that moment of selection, of determining a little subcategory, and then finding variations on that tiny theme.
Here’s a picture of Ernie as a firefighter.
Which then makes Collecting not even so much a physical or financial act as much as an internal mental-emotional moment of creative insight. That’s what the pleasure of Collecting is really all about, and that’s the thing that I think Non-Collectors find kind of hard to understand.
Here’s a picture of Betty Lou as a firefighter.
Unless it’s just some kind of weird OCD thing. Which is possible. What was your question, again?
by Danny Horn
