As a teenager I loved collecting things from bath cube wrappers, beer mats, cigarette boxes, to coins; not necessarily anything of value but I loved getting something different to add to my collection. I also loved organising them together into sets, especially the coins by their country of origin.
As an adult I collected records of my favourite pop artists, I read and kept storybooks (historical romance), and painted and bought loads of artist materials (acrylic). I hardly ever threw anything away. I’ve been collecting shells and pebbles from beaches as long as I can remember, and there would be bowls full around the house. That’s the one collection that lasted through till now. I also bought souvenirs in the different countries I visited and displayed them as a reminder. For some years I had a beautiful collection of dark blue glass objects on my east-facing kitchen window, because I loved the way the sun shone through them.
Why do we collect things?
What is our attachment to our collection?
For some it is because of potential value, like stamps, but there may be something else to consider. We always want more, the next one, so is there a kind of fulfillment we are looking for? It was only in helping to clear dead relatives’ things that I began to wonder at our incessant need for collecting. Is it an addiction?
Collecting pebbles and shells is because I find them beautiful, but I could enjoy their beauty momentarily and then leave them where they are – stones always look more colourful when wet and they are boring when dry, unless they are polished.
I have known people who look forward to their next tattoo, and I wonder why they want to so disfigure their bodies. I have friends who collect cars and I wonder if you can only drive one at a time, why have more?
Some rich people collect works of art but when they are locked away for security and not put on show, it makes me wonder, what’s the point? Is it acquisition for greed, for future wealth or for identity as the owner of a famous work of art?
Having cleared houses from people who have died and had visible proof that you can’t take it with you, I have taken stock of my own collection addiction. I’ve recently moved countries, so have let go of all my books and glass objects, and have sold my coin collection. I left all the pebbles and shells in my garden. Where I live now we are not too far from the coast which has beautiful sandy beaches, so I still pick up pebbles and stones, but now I admire them and drop them back on the beach. Every now and then one stays in my pocket, but it’s easier to let things go now, to release my attachment to having ‘things.’
We are so beautiful inside and nature provides us with that reflection constantly, we do not need anything outside of us to make us feel beautiful.
There is much for us to explore, in how we live, and why we do the things we do. I don’t have answers to the question about why we collect things, but I felt to start the conversation…
By Carmel Reid, originally from the UK and currently on a long term visit to Australia, working as a volunteer in a charity op shop
Related Reading:
Making Space
Bringing Sunshine inside my Basement by De-cluttering
De-cluttering my Flat and my Life: A Forever Deepening Amazingness
Words on Serge Benhayon 
Thank you Carmel, as much can be understood about our connection to our essences as we disengage our self from the impulses that cause the conditions that life has to be a certain way.
Sharing the bounty of nature with others enriches us so much more than owning, however transiently, a single pebble,
The collective behaviour of those who choose to let go of being a collector of anything less than our inner-heart, inner-most, or Soul, is transforming what it means to have collectivitis.