Suggested by Shaker lattendicht: "Do you collect anything? Is it more of a casual 'I have this pile of pens because I always seem to come home from work with one in my pocket/hair/bag' collection, or are you a on-purpose collector of a particular category?"
Not really. Once I get too many of a thing that I can use and/or appreciate (e.g. so many of an item designed to display that I can't display all of them), I start culling.
There are a bunch of reasons for that. Among them: I work at home and can't focus if my workspace is cluttered, so I am keen to keep a tidy home; I tend to be messier and less organized the more stuff I have; I tend to value more the things I have if I have fewer things; when I used to collect things as a kid, I would become obsessive about it and it would turn into a chore getting all the things.
When I was in my 20s, a flood destroyed an extensive and somewhat valuable music magazine collection I had been curating for about a decade. It was, on the one hand, devastating — and, on the other hand, freeing. The relief I felt at letting go of the compulsion the collection had become let me know that collecting wasn't for me. I can't do it halfway.
Know thyself, and all that.
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