We have always been a family of collectors. When we were young, and traveled to Mexico frequently to visit family, my dad took great pleasure in bargaining with street vendors for "ironwood" carvings.
My parents' home has approximately twenty such carvings - display shelves full of multiple copies of graceful sea turtles, sleek dolphins, curved seals and numerous other creatures formed from wood that felt substantial in your hands.
On trips to visit the pyramids of Teotihuacan, just outside of Mexico City, dad would travel home with a virtual village of obsidian (volcanic glass) sculptures - numerous iterations of the deities representing the sun and moon, owls, and various similar figurines.
Dad had versions in traditional black obsidian as well as the less common silver- and gold-tinged obsidian. A couple of years ago I took great pride in gifting my parents a carving I'd purchased in rainbow obsidian. Minds blown - neither of us had known that variant existed until my last trip.
I have read that raccoons will wash perfectly clean food in filthy water out of some compulsive behavior that is believed to be genetic in origin. I can relate to such compulsion.
I internalized (inherited?) dad's collector tendencies myself. In high school, it was vintage film cameras from the 1960s, heavy metal devices that were wound by hand and made a satisfying clacking as the reels turned. This hobby imbued my past-time of thrift store hopping with a purpose.
In college, I pivoted to out of print books by the writer and poet Richard Brautigan, which lent purpose to my exploration of used bookstores across the Bay Area in search of buried treasure.
That book collecting expanded during medical school and residency to books on the history of medicine. I had little physical space to inhabit during those years, but I devoted much of it to books.
Despite the badge of virtue associated with book collecting, I had a problem - I was accumulating stuff, and my stuff was dictating the terms of how I lived.
I now own a doctor home with more space than any I have ever inhabited. My wife and I have been slow to furnish it, with gradual purchases made at a glacial pace compared to our peers.
I am least encumbered mentally when I rid myself of stuff. After letting my kids choose a couple of keepsakes from the old camera collection, it went back to the thrift store.
I have all but a handful of those Brautigan books, 80 or more, in a box awaiting the day I get organized enough to list them on ebay. I want them out of my home so I can free up physical and mental space.
The book collection on the history of medicine once numbers close to 100. It's now been reduced to half of a bookshelf. There's no cure, but I'm in recovery.
And as I watch my mom struggle to find destinations for all the stuff my dad spent a lifetime accumulating, I've resolved to act now so as not to task my spouse or kids later with sorting and housing the detritus of my life.