On a deeper level I believe my book hoarding habits speak of control issues. When I examine my motivation for accumulating several hundred books, the core emotion I identify is FEAR.
How could fear lead one to surround themselves with books? Well, I think fear and its associated control issues reside at the heart of hoarding, at least for me. Some sort of concern that all will be lost, that life will become scary and I’ll have no control or, I guess (more rationally) that I’ll lose all my money and the ability to make any more. We never know what is going to happen in the future. Hoarding can be an attempt to control the unknown. Fill the cabinets with canned food and you’ll be covered no matter what comes at you. For a while it even makes you feel better.
“I have so many books that no matter what happens I can read forever.”
This is a false sense of security. Trust me, having several hundred books actually makes you substantially less flexible. You find yourself paying rent for your books.
In addition to my (semi-conscious) fears of natural or financial disaster, there is another, even deeper and more psychological terror. It’s as if I’m scared of developing amnesia. Not consciously (though “Desperately Seeking Susan” did have a big effect on me growing up). It’s like I fear I’ll forget everything I’ve read and if I keep the books they’ll serve as a kind of talisman helping me retain the memories. This realization goes a shade further and I can see that I’m afraid of losing my identity altogether, and keeping books and other material possessions proves to me that I am who I think I am. This is so false, stupid and pointless. I am who I am and I’m going to be who I’m going to be no matter what books are on the shelf.
This leads me to the real hoarding realization: the attempt to hold on to objects (books in my case) and identity is really an attempt to hold on to time. In the face of time’s passage we have no control and this is, for many of us humans, a very difficult thing to come to terms with.
Even now, after moving once again and shedding more possessions, I still have over a hundred books (though this includes more than ten copies of my own novel Gossip Kills). I’m a reader. I’m a writer. Books will always be a major part of my life. But I feel like I’ve made priceless progress in learning that I don’t need to own everything, and these epiphanies have left me physically and psychologically freer.
No comments:
Post a Comment