Personally, I would call it an induced epiphany followed by a catharsis.
I've been through the cycle quite a few times but I seem to be getting over it in my later years...
My earliest memory of this phenomenon is -this is quite embarrasing- Masters, not of Defense, of the Universe! I collected and played with these stupid, ridiculous, quirkily-named plastic action figurines and their vehicles and fortresses
ad nauseum until one day I woke up and had
no desire to even look at them, let alone pick them up. By then, the collection was pretty complete but I wasn't sad to see the whole lot go eventually.
Later on it was computer hardware. That went on from the first machine my dad got me in 1991 (I think) until 2001 - hey, ten years! By then I was a hard-core gamer/programmer and I had been able to build up my system with my own income. I think the girlfriend thing kind of tempered this but by then software and systems development was my line of study and my work so this interest has never died but rather developed into what I would call a love-hate relationship.
But the home PC is no longer an insatiable hobby, but a very useful tool.
Photography - also my dad's fault. Inherited his Yashica SLR after he passed away in 1994 but until today I've resisted trying to get a digital SLR and I am very happy with my competent-ish yet point-and-shoot digital Pentax, it's extra flash cards and basic tripod. That stopped there (for now) and this interest has also 'matured' and grown into a present-day one for the photography itself and not just for the gear.
I've been through an electric guitar phase, but that was my wife's fault. She's the musician so I wanted to complement her accoustic with an accompanying VAMS (virtual amp modelling system) pedal between the guitar and the amp. So I did research and, you guessed it, went sliding into the depths and got her a system that's very cool but probably utilised about 5%... if it wasn't a gift for the love of my life I would've called it a mistake.
Home theatre was another one but, to my defense, I realised that I seemed to be more able to keep a cool head, stay within reasonable financial constraints and calm down after the initial purchasing. Thanks to that I avoided getting a Harman/Kardon with a lot of bells, whistles and punch that would have gone to waste and I'm perfectly happy with the LG Flatron and Sansui system that I got.
Cell phones also featured along the line, and after owning some cool phones I got to the point where I'm happy with just having one that calls, messages (if that's a real word) and has a calendar for appointments and reminders.
As for the knife/multi-tool/"be prepared" side of things, a colleague with a knife magazine got me interested in 1998, but I just bought a cheapie multi-tool was fine for the low frequency of use and the interest fizzled. The Wave anniversary gift sparked it off again and resulted in a pouch and flashlight frenzy, but it looks like this has now had its catharsis during the research phase, before I actually made any purchase, so my goal for now is just to supplement the belt-loop leather sheath with a clip-on nylon sheath. If it has an extra sleeve/pocket for a flashlight, fine. That might come in handy in the future. But for now, all is calm and I must say, I like it that way. I enjoy buying and using well-designed, quality technology but at the end of the day I could say I enjoy the balance, reasonableness and moderation even more.
Viva le simplicité!
