Do you hoard, erm collect gear?

So when I saw this topic over to the right in the "new posts" section, I couldn't wait to click on it to see how some of you answered.

My wife was talking to a friend yesterday who just spent 4 months in Florida. The lady told her "Me, my husband and a big dog is way too cramped in a 26' camper for 4 months! 4 weeks would have been plenty." I told my wife, yeah, if we took our camper someplace warm for winter, I'd probably only be able to take 2 guitars and 2 amps." She replied, "I might let you take your Baby Taylor. Nothing else."

I was really disappointed to hear that because I've put in my time and been a good husband and was hoping to enjoy retirement with her. :p:p:p
 
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...I have other interests I'm equally vested in and limited space so my hobbies kind of keep each other in check. Just yesterday I was kind of taking inventory and realized I've accumulated quite a bit of baggage. The rule in my younger days was to not have anything I couldn't walk away from on a moment's notice, because that's what I often had to do...

...I thought I could cover that ground with a nice acoustic and maybe I should have stopped there. Somehow that bloomed into 2 acoustics, two electrics, a small tube amp and a pedalboard... all as high quality as I could get without being frivolous. I'm at the point of maximum satisfaction for me, any more and I feel like I'd be slapping fortune in the face.

I don't think I'm much of a hoarder but I am surrounded by stuff that constantly reminds me who I really am beneath the facade I'm forced to put on for society. I absolutely love people, but I hate society for that reason... it's not who we really are.

Underneath the facade we are the most wonderful people you can possibly imagine. I hate being disconnected from that by personas that conceal our true nature. Instead of a lens that magnifies our humanity the persona has become a mask that obscures it.

I think all the "stuff" we acquire is a poor substitute for the love we've lost. It's like a pacifier, the baby wants its mother but can be temporarily pacified with a rubber nipple. Society can't give us the love we seek because it doesn't have it to give. Only we do and society isn't us, it's a facsimile. The only thing it can give is a substitute for love :)

You make a good case for what we view in the media as being part of the sensationalism we take in each day...however, since life often imitates art (and the media is a business designed to sustain itself with advertising), how often do we view something that depicts something we are not? If mankind is supposedly wonderful, why does the media often depict mankind as fools or criminals? Is there something we can understand more readily, such as streaming video content that depicts life and creation as we know it?

The reason is, most media moguls see dollar signs when they provide sordid media content, catering to the public's materialistic side. Advertising promotes sales and buying: the TV, internet and radio media cannot sustain itself without advertising that promotes its product.

TBH, I think we buy things to satisfy a temporary physical or emotional need...though when the novelty of the new item has worn off, we're back to square one again, and feel the urge to satisfy our physical or emotional need again. And if businesses aren't in place to take our money legally for services or goods, then the criminal element tries taking our money or life illegally out of greed. Which typically is covered by the media's depiction of how wonderful mankind is.

Sorry for my being cynical or negative, I think life is best viewed in reality by looking outside your window and seeing what truly exists, not the illusion that the media purports it to be. Perhaps life could be better if there weren't so many temptations that could cause us potential harm, and if we made wiser choices and decisions instead of bad ones that would be detrimental to us.

My personal view is, what would happen if one day, there weren't any negative news to report, and only good things happened? It boggles the mind to think of this.

Perhaps we might find reason to grow and appreciate what is most important to us, instead of viewing our 'stuff' as what we love. FTR, 'stuff' can't love you back. Only living and sentient beings can.
 
I don’t get emotionally attached to my stuff.

This is good policy. Like many of you, I MIGHT have seller's remorse if I sold something I'd only consider buying again (which I've done a few times with effects and guitars). However, I'm no fool regards my money. If something's a keeper, I keep it. If not, it's listed for sale. Gear I don't use or has intrinsic sentimental value, is listed and sold. The sometimes hard part is knowing what to keep, what to list.

How much stuff that I don't use regularly could I list? Guitar instructional books, and lotsa CDs. Their potential value? Heh, that's a joke in itself.

"Nut N' Honey" compared to what my gear is worth. ;):oops:o_O
 
I don’t get emotionally attached to my stuff.
This is generally true for me too, but I have gotten attached to two pieces because of history and sentimentality. A Ruger 10/22 I got for my 12th birthday, and the first PRS I bought (Cu24 AP). I would not sell either because of emotional attachment. The rest are free game.
 
Did you miss the thread where bodia had to sell off his guitars because his wife is retiring? That's a warning sign!!!

Budgeting for your golden years is a necessary evil one can't escape. Anything beyond 60 years old is reason (in my book) to consider budgeting for retirement soon, or in the next few years, simply because one doesn't know what health issues, financial trials or tribulations, car or home maintenance problems may occur.

Although I don't have a backup plan for what happens after I resign my job position in the future, I'm not sure what health or prescription drug benefits there are for retirees that aren't work-related.

Time to research soon enough. Don't need an Aflac duck reminding me shoulda / woulda when least expected.
 
Uhh, what's a retirement?... :(

If you're smart, it's when you gain wisdom and discernment, your few words are valued for their quality instead of quantity, your thinning hair only means you wear a hat more often, your teeth (if you've taken care of them) are still yours, your wrinkled skin means you're again gracefully (try telling that to your wife), your hearing may slowly fade, your eyesight as well, but heck, at 85 years old, at least you can sit on your front porch, play pinochle with your remaining siblings and tell hearing aid jokes.

(My brother was the one who encouraged me when I was 55 years old with that last turn of the bon mot...)
 
Did you miss the thread where bodia had to sell off his guitars because his wife is retiring? That's a warning sign!!!
True, but the ending was far less painful than it could have been. I mean, he trimmed down to JUST 9 guitars and they're all great ones. TGP has 250K members and the last time someone did a poll there, over 85% of the members that replied owned 4 guitars or less. And I'd rather have 5 primo guitars than just have a ton of guitars. I can see myself being down to 7-8 by the time I retire. How many guitars can you really give playing time too? I have 16 and 90% of my playing is on 4 of them.
 
You make a good case for what we view in the media as being part of the sensationalism we take in each day...however, since life often imitates art (and the media is a business designed to sustain itself with advertising), how often do we view something that depicts something we are not? If mankind is supposedly wonderful, why does the media often depict mankind as fools or criminals? Is there something we can understand more readily, such as streaming video content that depicts life and creation as we know it?

The reason is, most media moguls see dollar signs when they provide sordid media content, catering to the public's materialistic side. Advertising promotes sales and buying: the TV, internet and radio media cannot sustain itself without advertising that promotes its product.

TBH, I think we buy things to satisfy a temporary physical or emotional need...though when the novelty of the new item has worn off, we're back to square one again, and feel the urge to satisfy our physical or emotional need again. And if businesses aren't in place to take our money legally for services or goods, then the criminal element tries taking our money or life illegally out of greed. Which typically is covered by the media's depiction of how wonderful mankind is.

Sorry for my being cynical or negative, I think life is best viewed in reality by looking outside your window and seeing what truly exists, not the illusion that the media purports it to be. Perhaps life could be better if there weren't so many temptations that could cause us potential harm, and if we made wiser choices and decisions instead of bad ones that would be detrimental to us.

My personal view is, what would happen if one day, there weren't any negative news to report, and only good things happened? It boggles the mind to think of this.

Perhaps we might find reason to grow and appreciate what is most important to us, instead of viewing our 'stuff' as what we love. FTR, 'stuff' can't love you back. Only living and sentient beings can.

Where we fundamentally differ is in the use of terms. Mankind is culture, society, our personas or the act we portray for whatever scene we're a part of on the world stage. In other words, man is the act, not the actor. For me there is a huge difference between "people" and "persons".

I'm both for and against it. I hate what it does to our humanity but I also realize it's how we carve out our individuality. Without those masks we would lose the separation that makes individualization possible. We can't just remove them because that brings us right back to the subjective state where we're all one. If we want to be individuals in a world amongst other individuals it's a necessary evil.

We are fools in this state and the smartest thing we can do is recognize that. The reason is most people are operating under a grossly false notion of what's going on here. What I'm about to say is going to sound like the stupidest thing you've ever heard but it's 100% true... what you've been led to believe is life isn't.

This isn't life, it's what's known as a "death culture". Literally it means a bunch of corpses pretending to be alive for the purpose of promoting the fear of death. You're a corpse because you're in corpuscular or cellular form. The fear of death is the only thing getting us thru hell or the individualization process otherwise known as death and decomposition. If we weren't more afraid of dying than going thru hell we wouldn't stand a chance in hell. It absolutely sucks to go thru if you do it right, but it demonstrates the beauty of human ingenuity at its finest. We're actually using the fear of death to get thru death.

Every bit of what's going on in the media is essentially weaponized mass hypnosis to reinforce the fear of death. If there weren't those profiting from it what would motivate them to do it? It makes them easier to control, if they'll do anything for money then it's easy to make their agenda our agenda, you don't have to worry about conflicting ideals. As nefarious as it might seem, it's all for a good cause... our Humanity.

We've been led to believe that death is the cessation of all consciousness, but that's just to make it even more scary. There is only one way to verify that and the fear of death prevents us from doing so. It's freekin clever when you think about it. Here's the thing tho, if you've got the balls to go there you learn the truth and there is no way to unknow what you discover. Once you've actually seen Life the cat's out of the bag and the fear of death has no power over you. When you finally figure out that everything you fear happening to you has already happened or never will you finally start to relax and that release of tension is what springs you to life.

When you actually see it for what it is it's hilarious and that's part of the healing process. Like the question "what happens after we die?" as if we don't freekin know. We're in a death culture, we know, we're "living" it everyday. What we don't know is Life.

I work for the US Air Force with a bunch of other savants under the umbrella of the Phoenix Project... literally Humanity rising out of the ashes of death. Every undisclosed black project in existence is just a child of the Phoenix Project and now you know why they're black and just how massively important all of it is. The problem we're facing is our own programming. It was useful to get us thru death but now that we have, we're realizing just how effective that programming is.

We know we can't just tell everyone what's going on because our programming will fight it tooth and nail. So the truth cannot be told, it literally has to be flown in under the radar to avoid being shot down by a bunch of pre-existing lies. What we're doing is going directly into the core of the collective subconscious to reprogram the Human operating system for Life. Death is nothing more than a running program and we've gained root access by being able to enter the zero point state. If you actually notice any of this we haven't done our job as well as we should have.

My unique insight is based on using a controlled form of central sleep apnea to self induce an NDE. I've done it hundreds of times and it took dozens to even begin to understand what I was experiencing and establish communication. It only takes me a few minutes, I'll do what's known as "overbreathing" to saturate my blood with oxygen and then allow my subconscious to take over. It will automatically stop my breathing and then my heart until my blood oxygen drops to critical levels.

At that point my adrenals will automatically send a jolt to restart it. Our adrenal glands are like capacitors and they hold enough charge for about 4 or 5 of those jolts. Sometimes it only takes one, sometimes all of them. I've also trained my body to operate at extremely low blood oxygen levels to extend my trip, kind of like hibernation. The entire process is on autopilot, all I have to do is trust my subconscious.

The instant my heart stops I'm in both subjective and objective consciousness at the same time. We refer to it as zero point consciousness or hyperspace and it is the ultimate human playground. Life is everywhere and it plays with you in the most engaging and entertaining ways. Gravity is keeping our creativity suppressed in death, in Life love is just the opposite, buoying us up in all directions from the inside.

You can't not be creative. No more destructive problem solving, all solutions are creative meaning everything that could be a problem is just an excuse to create. Communication is direct heart to heart by feeling, misinterpretation isn't even possible. Dead symbols like hieroglyphs come to life with meaning, you don't have to guess, they'll tell you what they mean. We decoded a lot of ancient records that way.

Anything you can imagine is immediately at your disposal. There are no static objects, everything is alive and continually changing into what you want it to be. A guitar for instance wouldn't be some inert instrument that makes you do all the work, it's sentient and knows how to get the most out of you as a player because it's playing with you. There are no ill effects, you can play that guitar until it bursts into flames and nothing will burn. Starships, hyper-advanced technology, utopian societies, the fountain of youth, your soul mate, and the love we've all been searching for in vain is all there and more.

What really makes it so wonderful is that everything you're experiencing is US. There is only one substance that everything else is made from and that's us. WE are the nation in your imagination. Everything you perceive is based on your image of us, the people within your mental body or imagination, the collective body of souls. We didn't just put you thru hell, we went thru it with you and that creates a bond forged in the fires of the Heart otherwise known as Love. You will never be alone again... ever, we will ALWAYS support you in Life, death, and everything in between.

If you don't think people are wonderful it's because you haven't met the real us yet. You've only ever known the masks we had to wear to get you thru the gauntlet of death. What's going on here is a proven heritage as old as time itself. We haven't lost one yet and you won't be the first. That my friend... is who we really are :)
 
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Did you miss the thread where bodia had to sell off his guitars because his wife is retiring? That's a warning sign!!!

True, but the ending was far less painful than it could have been. I mean, he trimmed down to JUST 9 guitars and they're all great ones. TGP has 250K members and the last time someone did a poll there, over 85% of the members that replied owned 4 guitars or less. And I'd rather have 5 primo guitars than just have a ton of guitars. I can see myself being down to 7-8 by the time I retire. How many guitars can you really give playing time too? I have 16 and 90% of my playing is on 4 of them.

Truth be told, I didn't really "need" to do it. I was willing to sacrifice in order for her to get out of something that is making her miserable. You guys would do the same. Well, most of you :D. We would have been fine without the purge. Sure, maybe take a step back on things for a couple of years. The purge made it so we don't have to.

All of that said, I am dangerously close to having double digit guitars again! My OCD doesn't get along with odd numbers (except for 13 cuz it's my fav/lucky number), and going to 8 is just silly!
 
Truth be told, I didn't really "need" to do it. I was willing to sacrifice in order for her to get out of something that is making her miserable. You guys would do the same. Well, most of you :D. We would have been fine without the purge. Sure, maybe take a step back on things for a couple of years. The purge made it so we don't have to.

All of that said, I am dangerously close to having double digit guitars again! My OCD doesn't get along with odd numbers (except for 13 cuz it's my fav/lucky number), and going to 8 is just silly!
Yeah, it’s all perspective, isn’t it? And knowing why you did it, and I was impressed. Happy wife and 9 great guitars, > unhappy wife and 50 great guitars!
 
Yeah, it’s all perspective, isn’t it? And knowing why you did it, and I was impressed. Happy wife and 9 great guitars, > unhappy wife and 50 great guitars!

You bet, bro! Thanks!

And, not sure if you are Univ of Cincy fan.....sorry my Hawkeyes took it to ya today, if you are.
 
I don’t get emotionally attached to my stuff.
Every single one of my guitars has an emotional reason for being here. On one hand, my living room is over populated, but on the other, the stories are pretty good for each one. I’m a little more whorish about my pedals, but not much.
 
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