There’s something I’ve often wondered about but never really thought about it enough to get to the core or its meaning. I am sure you are probably thinking I am referring to the nature of evil, world peace, or Divine providence verses free will. Sorry to disappoint but I am actually thinking about why people tend to horde writing instruments.
In every place I have ever worked or ever lived, there is always a spot or spots designated for amassing writing utensils. I can see you might want to keep say, a dozen pens and a dozen pencils around just in case you hit a bad string of luck and have a lot of breaks and a lot of breakdowns but most caches I have come across number anywhere from 50 to 200. How many ball point pens do you need? How many pencils? I can understand having different colored markers but at what point do you say enough is enough?
I bet there are at least 700 things in my house that are used for writing. This of course excludes the reality that more and more of the writing we do is on one of three computers (more hording) rather than with pen and paper. I would also guess there are roughly treble that if you searched the offices and store rooms in the administrative areas of the church.
I cleaned out my desk drawer a few months back and decided I didn’t need a drawer full of pens and pencils. I took the bulk of inventory down to the office supply store room and added my roughly sixty items to the hundreds already there. I am going to guess that these pens and pencils will sit there for some time as we order brighter and shinier pens and pencils from the office supply store.
How many of you have used a pencil and used it exclusively until you sharpened it down to a size too small use? Or how many of you have used a pen until all the ink has been used up? No doubt some people do and have extracted the full life out a writing instrument but I think more times than not we lose them or grab something else at some point. Maybe we should commit ourselves to one pen and one pencil to the exclusion of all others until we have extracted every last letter from their existence.
I am not sure what my point is, I guess I wondered if there was some unconscious survival instinct in each of us that makes us store pencils up. It’s as if our minds perhaps have an deep-seated fear of ever being caught in a situation where its thoughts might never be recorded. This instinct drives us to take the free pen at the vendor booth only to take the pen home and throw it in the drawer with 100 other pens that will never be used. The mind rests easier knowing that if it comes up with a thought that should be recorded; there is plenty of ammo in the junk drawer waiting to be used.
I will admit that if we are going to start a battle with our minds instincts we should focus our energy on resisting the temptation to eat too much and horde wealth but to be consistent, we should also liberate our lives and drawers from our irrational hording of writing utensils.
Tags: Hording, Pencils, Pens, subconscious
