With hoarding there are extremes upon the spectrum. I wouldn't say that I am the worst kind of hoarder - like the Scottish fellow in the picture - but I admit that I display some elements of this behaviour.
I hang on to things and I struggle to let them go. I still have every university coursework essay that I submitted for assessment between September 1973 and December 1977 and I still have every Hull City football programme that I bought between November 1964 and May 2024 - sixty years worth.
But I am even worse with books. I have hundreds of them. Mostly I have read them just the once and have no plans to ever read them again. In May of last year, I rediscovered a large cache of books up in our attic and I was quite ruthless with them, managing to push nearly all of them into a book bank at one of this city's recycling centres. I know it was the right thing to do but I still kind of regret it. See related blogpost.
There's a bookcase in our bedroom and two downstairs in this study. Each shelf is packed to bursting point with books that will never be read again. However, on Monday of this week, I was quite proud of myself for I took a bag of books to the new charity shop that has opened just down the main road. There were, I think, ten books in all and today I noticed that they are on sale for £2 each. Showing great mental fortitude, I did not buy them back. I let them go.
Some people are minimalists, living in uncluttered spaces. I guess the rest of us are meant to emulate them as if minimalism represented a cleaner, more holy approach to home life. But I am not sure about that. The psychology of hoarding is very interesting. Why do we do it? What, if anything, are we really trying to hang on to?
Perhaps my reluctance to part with books concerns the personal, mental connection I had with them when I read them. Ditching them would arguably be like dumping evidence of my intellectual and emotional relationship with the world beyond these four walls.
Where are you on the hoarding/minimalism spectrum?
I believe that obsessive compulsive disorder is in play here. People don't know why they want to keep stuff or acquire it.
ReplyDeleteThe sub-conscious has a lot to answer for in this regard.
DeleteI don't usually hoard things and enjoy passing things on or just getting rid of them. My exhusband was a hoarder, is a hoarder. His latest obsession is money. He has loads of money but apparently it's not enough. I'm just thankful I'm not married to him anymore. I'm not a minimalist but if I had to choose between the two extremes, I would pick minimalism.
ReplyDeletePictures of your home environment always look good - pretty tidy too.
DeleteI am definitely more minimal; I don't like stuff for the sake of stuff. I like to see what we have, see it's meaning to us, it's story for us, and we don't need a lot of things to tell that story.
ReplyDeleteI usually feel better about myself when I tidy stuff up. My computer desk is almost always very messy.
DeleteI could never be a minimalist and probably not a hoarder either, but I do tend to hold onto "stuff", including books, but over the past two years I have given away many that I know I won't read again and kept favourites that I can read over and over and still enjoy the story. Of course new books have been bought and some added to the bookshelves and some have been read and passed on to family or friends. 99% are fiction, with a few biographies sprinkled in.
ReplyDeleteSounds like you are a big reader Elsie. Good on you.
DeleteI am a minimalist who would be vicious at getting rid of things if I weren't so lazy. :)
ReplyDeleteI think books are one thing people have a lot of difficulty getting rid of and i think it comes from the mindset where books were super valuable, representing education and self improvement and probably cost quite a bit to buy.
ReplyDeleteI wouldn't call myself a hoarder but I do struggle to let go of things and my house is a bit cluttered. Thedn again, cluttered compared to what? Once I do let go of things, I almost never look back.
As it is no longer the busy family home it once was, you have a golden opportunity to reduce your belongings but personally I find total minimalism very unappealing.
DeleteI like to think that i am fairly middle of the road but husband keeps anything and everything, just in case. He has a trunk of vinyl that have never seen the light of day for over 40 years!! What's the point?
ReplyDeleteHe has tools galore, most of which are unnecessary.
But we have to compromise.
I always say theres too much stuff in this house. He says "You'll have us down to one bed, two chairs and two plates!"
i commented yesterday but it seems to have gone missing. This does seem to happen quite a bit. Anyway, Happy Holidays! 😁
I am sorry to hear that some of your comments have gone missing as I always appreciate your inputs Christina.
DeleteRather low. Two book cases, half of which I'd never miss, but there is space for them. We ride ourselves of one bookcase before moving here and a lot of books were taken away. My sister on the other hand, is a shocker. They have multiples of so many things when only one is needed. And so many books. A good number of them are medical books owned by her doctor wife.
ReplyDeleteMoving is a good way to suppress one's hoarding tendencies.
DeleteI also collect books, but in the last 20 years have given a lot away. Trouble is if I miss a certain book will go and buy another copy. But I am sure your study is not as messy as the one pictured.
ReplyDeleteDon't be so sure Thelma!
DeleteI have become better at ditching my treasures since we moved house. The local charity shops are full of JayCee originals.
ReplyDeleteYes - moving house would cause anybody to ruthlessly sort out what they have got. Good job you didn't leave Lord Peregrine in a charity shop.
DeleteI've disposed of a lot in the last two years, but have photographed or scanned in quite a lot of it. As regards computer files, I still have everything, e.g. all email back to 1986.
ReplyDeleteRecently I deleted thousands of e-mails because of what is probably a hotmail scam that warns you that you are running out of storage space.
DeleteI suspect I fall into the middle category. At the moment I'm on a throw out binge, and had just passed on six huge bags of fabric pieces, kept from the time when I belonged to a Sewing group which specialised in Patchwork and appliqué.
ReplyDeleteI've given most of my books to local animal Charity shops, and no longer buy replacements. Having a Kindle really helps the need for book hoarding. Unfortunately I still seem to have a way to go to totally de-clutter. My late husband was a world class hoarder and never threw anything away - it's taken me years to throw out everything he left, and even after seven years I'm still finding the occasional boxful that I've missed.
Perhaps he did it deliberately so you can never forget him.
DeleteI never stop collecting and never leave a bargain at a carboot sale.
ReplyDeleteTake care or you'll end up looking like that other Dave - the one in the picture!
DeleteWhen we moved into this house I was so delighted to have a library. My own library! But like you- I have hundreds of books I'll never read again and what good are they doing me or anyone, just sitting on those shelves gathering dust? I feel a very mixed reaction to see them. They make me happy and they make me anxious, knowing that one of these days my kids are just going to have to deal with all of that.
ReplyDeleteWell, Mr. P., I either inadvertently published an unfinished comment or didn't post at all. I guess I had a finger slip.
ReplyDeleteI keep too much but I don't keep enough stuff to create complete chaos. I WANT to get rid of things. I keep telling myself I will.
I'm usually good at keeping things pretty well cleaned out. I was VERY minimalist during my New York years, when everything I owned fit into a one-room 430-square-foot apartment! I've expanded a bit since then.
ReplyDeleteI love to read but I have never been a book hoarder. I just love my library and find all I need to read there. I don't think I am a minimalist but I am not a hoarder either. So I don't know what label would fit me. I just have some stuff but not too much.
ReplyDeleteI consider myself in the middle though I probably tend towards the minimalist side according to the houses of my peers. I am balanced out by my wife who was brought up in a very poor country where material possessions are treasured. Fortunately, she mostly contains it to our storage room in the basement where there are things she hasn't seen or used in a decade but can't bear to get rid of should she need to see or use it again.
ReplyDeleteI had a great uncle on the extreme side of the equation. His house was a series of narrow pathways through mounds of debris that were shoulder high. There was only one place to sit and so visiting, meant standing in the clear spot left so the door could be swung open to enter and exit. I don't know why he was the way he was since nobody else in my family was like that. I suspect it was him growing up during the Great Depression and also the loss of his wife a few years after they were married. He never got over that and even received electroshock therapy for it back in the day.
Like you, I have kept every university book, every lecture note, even exam papers. I have hundred of books - a lot in German needed for uni, some in Latin, dictionaries on nearly every European language. I have photos in albums and scrapbooks going back decades. I just cannot bear to part with any of them. I keep scraps of fabric after dressmaking. Just in case. But having said that I can be quite ruthless and occasionally have a jolly good clear-out. I could not live like those people who have to climb over piles of rubbish to get to their beds. I can still see 95% of my carpets!!!
ReplyDeleteI'm far from minimalist but I like to keep things reasonably tidy. My bookcases and cupboards etc are full, but I don't like them getting over-full, so I do have clear-outs now and then, when needed. With most things now my basic rule is that if I buy something new, something old has to "go" instead - whether that is a book, a DVD, or an item of clothing. What has "saved" me in later years when it comes to collecting books (English fiction) is that since 2010 or so I've mostly buying Kindle and Audio books rather than printed ones - and those don't take up any physical space!!! All the free or very cheap English classics available as e-books now also makes it easier to get rid of old paperbacks with print so small that I can't read them any more anyway... I agree with you about the "personal, mental connection" with books, though. I suspect that even if I should eventually not be able to see to read at all, I'd still find it hard to get rid of *all* my books...
ReplyDeleteI'm not really a hoarder but certainly not a minimalist. Your post and some of the comments have conjured up an old "get rid of this crap" impulse in me. We'll see how far that goes.
ReplyDeleteEvery few years I have throw out
ReplyDeleteBoy does it feel good