Hobbies, interests, and passions, oh my. The focus of our interests varies from person to person, and it’s hard to tell what will pique one person, but leave another completely bored. There seems to be nothing we all embrace with equal fervour. That’s a problem.

I’ve never been particularly “one true way” about my interests, save for reading which is forever and always, and also not what I’d consider a passion. It’s more a part of me than that. It’s like my skeleton – reading is always there. My interests in other things, however, in this or that pursuit, ebb and flow with the passage of time.

I wax and wane when it comes to my interests and hobbies. Something will catch my eye, and I’m hooked. The early stages of affection are the best, when enthusiasm runs hot. It’s like find a new love. Everything is exciting.

A new interest can be hard on the people in my circle – I wax poetic and with frequency regarding my new interests. I’m sure most of the people I know are tired of hearing about Funko Pop dolls. The honeymoon period of any endeavour often annoys those on the outside. Once I settle in to the new collection relationship, I get quieter about the whole thing. Part of that is fear – we like to judge other people’s interests and find them wanting. It’s all very well for us to collect spoons and hotel shampoos, but other people’s collections of beach sand and pub coasters are just weird.

I don’t enjoy judgment’s sting. I should probably stop collecting criticism.

Hockey cards and Star Wars figurines.

I’ve had collections forever. Some people come to them later in life, but not me. I don’t remember a time when I wasn’t about my things. I like having my own stuff. Part of that stems from growing up in a family that struggled financially – scarcity make you hold on tightly to the things that are your. You might not get the opportunity to have something like them again. Best treat your things well.

There’s no method to my collectibles madness, no overarching theme despite people’s efforts to find one at times. I’ve collected this, that, and the other over the years, with varying degrees of enthusiasm. Some I enjoy very much. Some feel vital, at least in the early stages. I’ve outgrown that sustained intensity of feeling that dogged me in my youth.

There also isn’t much overlap with my collecting. I’m mostly one-at-a-time with my passions. I’m happy to be moving out of the vintage board game phase that’s been my main focus for the past few years (ongoing doll acquisitions notwithstanding; dolls are lifers like books) – board games take up a fair bit of closet space, especially old ones, and finding missing pieces can be hard.

Nothing, however, has emerged as a new collectible contender. I’m not hot about anything right now, though I tried with Lego. I seem to be in a bit of a holding pattern with my life. Grief and a pending move are having an impact. New obsessions aren’t always convenient: I don’t have time right now.

I don’t have time even though I’m fairly surface level with my corporeal collectibles. I collect things, not their information and backstories – though I do keep the Squishmallow and Beanie Baby tags. Names are important. But I can’t tell you any weird or wonderful details regarding the things I’ve collected over the years. I’m a font of trivia – my nickname was (Cliff) Claven in college – but I never seem to stir myself when it comes to the personal collectibles I adore. I don’t connect with them in that way. The relationship is more superficial. It’s based on appearance, not character detail.

My first big collection was a hockey card one. The Vancouver Canucks had a great season in 1982, and we all caught the playoff bug. Much of my allowance and babysitting money went to O-Pee-Chee trading cards. I had more than five hundred cards in my collection at my peak. That’s a big stack of cardboard – I wish I remember how I worked it. I bought some of them with babysitting money – I miss the powdery, cardboard gum that used to come in the packages – but we also played games to win them from each other, and participated in trade days. Happiness is dumping your multiples.

Would that I still had those cards.

Or even the Star Wars figurines I collected over the course of the first three movies. I stored them in a fishing tackle box when I wasn’t playing with them – and yes, using them hurt the value some. A tackle box is the perfect size for action figures, and the hook and lure slot arrangement ensured I could keep Leia, Luke, and Boba Fett separate. The Millennium Falcon didn’t fit, but it was my brother’s anyhow. It was orange, if I remember correctly – the tackle box, not the Falcon.

I never thought to save them once the magic was gone. I gave them to some neighbourhood kids who played with them outside. I think that’s a bigger sin than unboxing. Who knew people that one day people would spend such ridiculous sums of money on Star Wars figurines? I suppose I could advise the current generations to discard nothing from their youth, but the production numbers associated with today’s runs ensures that scarcity isn’t a thing anymore with mass produced toys. There can be no appreciation of value if the supply of a thing is functionally near-infinite.

Non-corporeal passions

I like stuff. I like my books, my dolls, and my knickknacks. I like my clothes, and hats, and scarves. I especially like the multigenerational stuff that comes with family stories attached. The salad plate that was my grandmother’s. My mother’s wedding silverware. The Maori carvings my paternal grandmother sent from New Zealand.

I’m very attached to my things. I like to organize them, and take care of them – they’re sort of like pets. I can get quite distressed when accident or injury occurs. Unreasonable even. Hysterical back in the day, when I was a child. I’m getting better. I’ve learned to roll with challenges and punches some. It’s an improvement on the overly-intense. That can be hard on everyone.

The level of intensity often correlates with my mental health. The better things are going, the less obsessive and intense I am with my things. This is a good thing. Interests and passions are nice. Obsessions and overreactions are tiring and detrimental. And stuff can’t keep you safe no matter how many times you reorganize it.

The things I’m most passionate about aren’t things you buy and put on a shelf or in a shadow box. I’m passionate about my children, my family, and my friends – I want them to have good lives. I’m passionate about the environment and how we treat it our only home. Turn off the tap when you brush your teeth. And I’m passionate about politics. I don’t understand people who aren’t passionate about politics. Politics is everything.

My friends aren’t political. Not being political is a function of privilege, though people don’t hearing things like that. That’s too bad.

A lot of people think life isn’t political, but that opinion is one I like to call wrong. Where you live, what you buy, how much it costs, how much you get paid for work, how safe your house is, how good schools and healthcare are, the condition of the roads you drive on, the safety of airplane flights, the potability of water, the breathability of air, the movies you see, the toilets you flush, and a million other things you never think about are politics.

Societies are political. If you live in one, your life is political. The root is polis, or city. They are indistinguishable from one another. They cannot be severed.

Politics isn’t (just) annoying and self-indulgent parties duking it out over abortion, immigration, and military spending, though that is the in-your-face component we see all too often. Politics is like Frank’s Red Hot – it’s on everything. There is no part of life that isn’t affected by the political.

And when you refuse to get involved or “be political,” what you are doing is failing. We have a responsibility to the society we inhabit. We reap benefits from living communally. Political participation is the price. Abrogation of that responsibility carries significant, negative costs for many. And if the many isn’t you, then I’m we’re back to privilege again. Which can often be spelled, “selfish.”

---

---