Fleeting Collections

Throughout my life I've gone through phases ranging from hoarding a bunch of useless junk to purging all the non-essentials, and then the cycle repeats. Usually the hoarding is short-lived. I don't often think of myself as much of a collector, though I do pride myself as an accumulator of fine books. Those I grow more fond of with age. The rest of my collections I seem to have outgrown.

Over the years I compiled collections of CD's, DVD's, and briefly Blu-rays, but when I decided that these were largely inefficient, expensive, and fragile I switched entirely to digital media collections. I've lost several of those as well. This seems to be the way for me with collections; they just don't last.

When I was a rather young I used to catch moths from my lawn and the school yard. Sometimes I let them go right away, catch and release. Sometimes they sat in a jar or a plastic bottle until they all perished. I had an acquaintance with different insects pinned in display cases. Perhaps there's a connection. But I never kept the dead bugs. That would be weird.