I love stuff. I like to own stuff. I like to see all the stuff I own scattered about my room. I like books on my shelf, CDs in my giant blue CD case, and movies in the cabinet.
Does this make me materialistic?
I like to think not.
Alex Day, or nerimon on YouTube, recently talked about how he's not only clearing up his Internet life, but also clearing out some of his material possessions in preparation for moving to America.
Now, I have every intention on somehow getting out of Midwest America and planting myself somewhere in the UK or Ireland, but I never really thought about getting rid of all my stuff. I just figured my parents would store it for me.
The thing is, a lot of the things I have, especially books, have contributed to my personality in at least some way. My brother thinks that personality is mostly due to genetics, but I don't buy it. I think everything about you is shaped by your environment. This includes more than just the people you're around.
For example, let's take a value from the Harry Potter books. Like loyalty. Namely, Ron as a loyal friend to Harry and Hermione, even when they aren't getting along. If I had just gotten the books from the library, and returned them right after reading them, would I have retained that value. I might have just forgotten all about it. But when it's sitting there on my shelf, it serves as a reminder. I can be in a fight with my friend, see Goblet of Fire out of the corner of my eye and realize that it's not worth arguing over, and we don't want it to escalate to Ron and Harry's fight in the book.
Does that make any sense?
It's not like I want to have thousands of pearls sitting around not being worn. My books have sentimental meaning as well, and I read most of them a hundred times over.
Seriously. You should see my copy of Prisoner of Azkaban. Completely falling apart.
If you have any thoughts, please share. =]
2 comments:
I could not agree with you more. I would never define myself as materialistic, but I feel very comforted and safe when I'm in my room, surrounded by my books and dvds and posters of everything, and everyone, I love and has helped shape my life.
Sitting in a room full of objects means nothing to me but when I know they're mine or they have some sort of meaning to me, I feel like I'm in a room full of friends.
I just wrote this to Dyan and I think Alex is great for doing this and I have considered, on a much smaller scale, doing it before but I don't think I'd ever be able to do what he's doing. Congrats to him...
haha i typed about that =P
i love owning books. i could never get rid of the specials ones like hp. EVER.
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