Hoarding

"The wise man does not hoard. The more he helps others, the more he benefits himself." Lao Tzu

If I had the desire to hoard, and I do, it is to hoard books. I love to see their spines lined up on a bookshelf, all different widths, colors, titles and will often steal a look at my book case above the computer desk just to feel the comfort and warmth, books have always given me. Before I left to go to Korea in March 2010, I had a huge library in my house. Every room had its own bookcase and often it was one bookcase lined up on the walls. Ah, it was wonderful. Then, in my absence, my ex-husband feeling anger towards me gave away the entire collection to the library. When I found out in Korea, it plunged me into a deep grief that has yet to heal. My name was not in those books and I can't get them back. He chopped the bookcases into wood and left them in a pile in my yard that I am still trying to get rid of.

I think I learned about hoarding then. Now, I live in the master bedroom of my house and all of my books including library books reside here. I still love books, but hoarding is something that needs to be looked at and examined. I had hoarded clothes, but I did not mind losing them for I had lost weight and did not fit into them anymore. I am planning on moving again but will not have the huge number of things anymore. I will just make use of public libraries, electronic readers although I am not fond of them as I am for the real thing and reading a book and giving them away.

There is limitless worlds in books and I love exploring all the different ideas and truths that are included in them. That has not changed. It is the medium that has changed for me. I still think living in a huge library would be fun but not practical. I read books on collecting ever so often; but people often collect for value and not for the pure joy of reading. I am of the reader sort and don't care so much for the value of the books itself. Getting books out of print is a joy and love Google Books for having them online for this reason. If I was a very wealthy person, I would get a great deal of happiness just donating valuable books to collections available to the public. I will never forget the library in Korea that had English books that one could check out. There were hungry readers, both Koreans and foreigners, who would come everyday just to read their favorite books.

Maryanne Wolf wrote in her book, "Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain", (HarperCollins: 2007) that the skill of reading is not natural to the human brain. Many people have great difficulty reading. Jackie Stewart, the Scottish racing driver talked about rejection as a child because of his dyslexia and how deeply he felt about his inability to read. Many people echoed his feelings. I was lucky. I am dyslexic, but it was in mathematics that it shows as numbers do not show patterns as words do. Emotionally and personally, reading was a natural for me.

I had a rough beginning as a child and books provided the relief I needed to make the transition to adulthood. It seems natural to me now that I would hoard what gave me so much pleasure and happiness during those times and continues to do so now. I will be forever grateful for all of the authors and their words who gave me the courage and strength to survive the bad times and the knowledge to face the unknown. There is a saying that you can't take your riches with you in death. The same goes for everything else. You can sleep in only one bed at a time, drive one car at a time and live in one house at a time. I can read more than one book at a time, but a whole house full of books was just a bit too much.