I read somewhere that the act of collecting things was a psychological disorder attempting to overcompensate for something. So... we're all nuts with little nuts.
I think there may be some truth to this.
And I think powernoodle may hve a handle on it as well. There's lots of reasons to collect things, the particular item collected may differ because of what the root cause is. I know I used to collect a ridiculous amount of knives, guns, and stuff in general in my younger days. Then it reached a peak, and I downsized big time. I just woke up one day, looked at all the s--t I had collected, and asked myself what the hell was I doing? Gt rid of most all of it. Customs, both knives and guns, all went.
Looking back on it, it was like I was in the grip of some sort of insanity. It only faded when I became a family man, and I had kids and then grandkids. Like I reached someplace where I felt at home, and didn't need all the junk to occupy my mind. I still love knives, and would soon as go out without my pants on than without a knife. But something happened to regulate it back to a sort of past time. A minor hobby that doesn't get out of hand. I keep a handful of knives around, and my new rule is; one in-one out.
A knife is part of man's ancient heritage. It helped man adapt to a hostile environment and make skins into clothing, process food from animals and plants, build shelters. A knife of some sort is used every day to help man survive even in our urban life. Butchers process those steaks for dinner, construction workers who built your house used Sliding blade Stanley utility knives to strip wire, trim insulation, open packages or cut off the ends of culking tubes to seal openings. A cutting tool is vital even in the city, because emergencys happen. Like the old lady in Boston who choked to death because her scarf got caught in the escalator and nobody had a knife.
But while a knife is a needed item, even though most of society does not think so, we don't need to go over board like we do. Lets face it, we're nuts, or we wouldn't be on a knife forum. Any decent quality pocket knife would serve us well, and we sure don't need Busse or Randall knives to dress a deer or take on a picnic. We like the Busse and Randall's because we're knife knuts. Heavy on the nuts. Most of society thinks we're nuts and they are right. Who else would spend what we spend on knives that are not needed, or even practical?
It's the same with gun nuts, car nuts, or any collector who goes over board accumulating amounts of things that will never be used, just collected and fondled. When a 30 to 40 dollar Buck knife will serve you for most anything and will last you the rest of your life if taken care of, why do we spend money on something costing five or seven times as much, and then buy multibles of similar items?
There may an uncomfortable amount or truth in what Sufler says. We're nuts. On the other hand, while we may be nuts, basically we're harmless. It's not like we're collecting anything really dangerous to society at large, like King cobra's or rattle snakes, or vials of anthrax. As long as it's not so out of control that our kids are going hungry because daddy spent the grocery money on a new knife. Yet on still another hand, I'm very sure that fat lady I crawled into an upside down Datsun 210 to cut her seatbelt loose with a pocket knife was glad somebody had a knife. So at least our obsession has an upside that's a very useful upside. At times like that, we good nuts to have around.
Are we nuts? Sure. But at least it's a useful kind of nuts sometimes.
Carl.
or maybe we all are.....but at least we collect cool things
