Hoarding, Greed in Disguise....
For the last two days I have been cataloguing and organizing dvds. I have only gotten through a little over two hundred, out of maybe 600? Right now there are bets on how many we own. Originally, one family member suggested 300, other guesses were in a similar ballpark. My current guess is 600-750. Ridiculous, huh?
How did we accumulate so many???
Slowly, through sales. Slowly, as gifts. Slowly, by trends.
The rate that we give it away? Almost non existent.
As Dr. H. P. Bianchi once wrote: "I would maintain that Americans love stuff, buying it, admiring it, holding on to it, and hate giving it away. In short, we are addicted to stuff." http://catholicreview.org/blogs/fertile-soil/2012/05/27/america-s-addiction-to-stuff
And I agree with him that, "A return to the state of poverty or a job loss is not necessary to understand the true value of goods. We do not need to reject stuff but possess them with moderation, enjoying goods without attachment, giving away more than we keep."
Therefore, one family goal of ours is to eliminate all the movies we can. If it were up to only me, I would get rid of most of them, and keep only a handful - enough to fit on one shelf. I really don't need more than that. However, since this is a family vote, I imagine, we will be keeping an amount way beyond "handfuls".
The next huge pile I need to go through is books.... This is a personal attachment for me and a more active level of greed... "Book sale? Where?" With books, I am addicted to amount and quality. I want to be able to brag to people, "Oh, yeah? Well, have you seen my library?" Having a large and sophisticated library makes me feel important, even more intelligent. Even if no one ever physically sees my library, knowing that I have so many books, I feel well off. However, if there was ever to be a fire and I lost all these books, I would only actually mourn two: my personal everyday Bible (with my notes), and St. Faustina's Diary. Although, the other individual books could be replaced; I would miss the number more than the books, themselves. I would feel "poor".
To me that is sad. I have often contemplated joining a third order that includes poverty as a vow, but I am too greedy. Books are my obstacle... "Yes, I haven't read that in eight years, but I will NEED it one day! Yes, I NEED every work ever written by Aristotle!!! Yes, I have two copies of that book; but they are different translations so I NEED both of them!"
For the last two days I have been cataloguing and organizing dvds. I have only gotten through a little over two hundred, out of maybe 600? Right now there are bets on how many we own. Originally, one family member suggested 300, other guesses were in a similar ballpark. My current guess is 600-750. Ridiculous, huh?
How did we accumulate so many???
Slowly, through sales. Slowly, as gifts. Slowly, by trends.
The rate that we give it away? Almost non existent.
As Dr. H. P. Bianchi once wrote: "I would maintain that Americans love stuff, buying it, admiring it, holding on to it, and hate giving it away. In short, we are addicted to stuff." http://catholicreview.org/blogs/fertile-soil/2012/05/27/america-s-addiction-to-stuff
And I agree with him that, "A return to the state of poverty or a job loss is not necessary to understand the true value of goods. We do not need to reject stuff but possess them with moderation, enjoying goods without attachment, giving away more than we keep."
Therefore, one family goal of ours is to eliminate all the movies we can. If it were up to only me, I would get rid of most of them, and keep only a handful - enough to fit on one shelf. I really don't need more than that. However, since this is a family vote, I imagine, we will be keeping an amount way beyond "handfuls".
The next huge pile I need to go through is books.... This is a personal attachment for me and a more active level of greed... "Book sale? Where?" With books, I am addicted to amount and quality. I want to be able to brag to people, "Oh, yeah? Well, have you seen my library?" Having a large and sophisticated library makes me feel important, even more intelligent. Even if no one ever physically sees my library, knowing that I have so many books, I feel well off. However, if there was ever to be a fire and I lost all these books, I would only actually mourn two: my personal everyday Bible (with my notes), and St. Faustina's Diary. Although, the other individual books could be replaced; I would miss the number more than the books, themselves. I would feel "poor".
To me that is sad. I have often contemplated joining a third order that includes poverty as a vow, but I am too greedy. Books are my obstacle... "Yes, I haven't read that in eight years, but I will NEED it one day! Yes, I NEED every work ever written by Aristotle!!! Yes, I have two copies of that book; but they are different translations so I NEED both of them!"
