Anti-Collectors

A friend of mine told me about Grant Baciocco, who, inspired by an interview with Chris McNaught, decided to winnow his possessions down to six hundred items. Chris's goal was five hundred, and he was inspired by a woman who got her total swag down to three hundred items. The only things that are allowed to be free of the list are those that get worn out or used up, i.e, clothes, foodstuffs, etc.

Of course, this would be utterly impossible for me to do, but that doesn't mean I can't admire it. I love a simplicity of a Japanese rock garden or a Quaker house - I just can't do that. I'm assuming that these guys didn't grow up with hoarders in their family, or it simply didn't get passed on to them. My maternal grandparents were big-time collectors, so I guess it skipped a generation.

Odds are low that they're OCD/ADHD-laden, as well - I've read posts where Grant threw out a box that hadn't been opened in over a year. Good for him, but that would have driven me insane - I probably would've been at the landfill a week later, clawing through garbage to try and find the box!

If you do decide to start purging, there's a neat organization called Collectibles With Causes where you can donate your stuff to them and deduct the market value rather than trying to sell it yourself (which can be a time-consuming pain in the neck). DWC auctions off whatever you donate to them, and then they give the money to charity! I usually use my auction winnings to buy more stuff, so I'm not quite at that place... not yet...

PS - Looking over the blog entries, it looks like Grant was a big-time toy and comic book collector. That's quite the turnaround!