Chiomara

This is exactly my problem, even though I mainly only hoard digital media these days. (But if it weren't for my constant relocating and lack of funds + space, I'd absolutely be living in a literal fortress of my hoarded treasures. Eventually I'd die and no one would be able to find me, and my numerous cats and exotic pets would eat me.)

With me, it tends to happen in cyclic phases..? I'll compulsively hoard, say, soviet-era cartoons for a few months with a feverish intensity, and then abruptly lose interest in it entirely and delete it, and then do it again a mere few weeks later. I've always wondered if anything in particular can trigger or intensify the hoarding behavior. (I for one notice that I do it more if I feel trapped in a certain situation or relationship or whatever-- almost as a way to disassociate and remove myself?) I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing ever, though I often wonder whenever I leap from bed at 4 am stricken with the all-consuming urge to download EVERY single 1990s cult training video (or every ebook on Appalachian folklore) in existence.

Or I'll hoard things while insisting to myself that it's "For future book research!"-- hundreds or thousands of old news articles, field recordings, dozens and dozens of themed playlists, obscure 1950s music, and unnerving old training videos, and, sure enough... I will abandon it, it'll fall into disarray and a few months later I will use that to justify beginning the hoarding process anew rather than actually using what I already have.

I always secretly love when my laptop or computer dies, because then I have an excuse to hoard everything all over again and make lots of tidy (but needlessly elaborate) "To Acquire" lists. Which is the phase I am in now, since I'm on a new computer. Tabbed word processing programs (mine also has the capability of infinite tabs WITHIN THE TABS!) are wonderful.