2015年5月2日土曜日 - 
Tony: Filling a bookshelf
Firstly, everyone is a collector. Everyone.
That uncomfortable sensation you sometimes get before throwing away a favorite pen that has finally
died? That is the little collector in you feeling stressed. Ever discover that
you have socks you never wear? The little collector kept them.
I'm not an evolutionary psychologist but I would speculate that throughout the ages it has been advantageous for our ancestors to hold onto things in the environment that were useful and
beneficial to their survival. Holding onto things that were of use prevented
the need for spending time or energy finding them again. This must have been
reinforced as we began making tools.
Now we have books. Books make the little
collector in me squeal with delight, and, if I'm honest, I'll
admit that my little collector isn't so little. I fully admit I like to
acquire objects and experiences. The delight of books is that they are both
objects and experiences. A fatal combo for someone like me.
When we give our collector free rein and do not moderate its behavior, problems can occur.
Some people can get carried away hoarding
things, keeping anything and everything, including garbage.
A mature collector, who is not a hoarder, will find ways to refine his or her collection so that he or she can enjoy the objects without getting overwhelmed. Hence, the title of this blog: Filling a
bookshelf. If I, or perhaps you, were to keep every book, and/or magazine,
and/or newspaper that we've read, we could eventually be engulfed by them.
If we decide to keep a certain select number of titles, we have then decided to fill a bookshelf. I am keeping the best of the best of the books I have read, and when I look at them I feel the little collector inside of me smile in much the same way, millions of years ago, that one of our shared ancestors’ little collectors smiled when our ancestor kept a useful tool for later.
Happy
collecting.
evolutionary：進化的な
speculate：思索する
advantageous：都合のよい
hold
onto：ため込む
squeal with delight：喜んでキャーキャー言う
fatal：致命的な
combo：組み合わせ
free rein：行動の完全な自由
hoarding：買いだめ
engulfed：飲み込まれた