CONVERTING CHAOS INTO ORDER Part One

Author Essie Feldhacher

Recently a friend expressed how in society ‘hoarding’ has become a dirty word, one destined, it seemed, to take on a new and negative meaning in what most would have to admit has become a throw-away society caused by an over-abundance and easy replacement of material things.

“In my opinion,” my friend said, “hoarding is the label you’re affixed with, and generally by grasshopper type people who didn’t take the time to stock and store items themselves. Then they are resentful when those who have acquired items with an eye to future use – the ants in society – have goods at their disposal, while the grasshoppers do not. Those who sling around the word ‘hoarder’ and use it in a negative light, tend to be the ones who couldn’t be troubled to save-for-a-rainy-day, nor prepare their cupboards and closets to face times of adversity, drought, disaster, or any one of a number of things that are part and parcel of the human condition.”

I agreed with her. Fables like The Grasshopper & The Ant did not become universal wisdom, passed down in parable like manner to amuse, but rather to make a point and educate. For those who are Ants it is irritating to have the Grasshoppers heap scorn, ridicule, and affix insulting labels.

It happens to the best of us, heh, heh.

Interestingly enough the other week my 13 year old granddaughter was over, I inquired about her other grandma, and she said, rolling her eyes, “She’s such a pack rat.” Yes, indeed. The woman is almost World Renown. Olympic Quality, in fact. She’ll load up their car to take a 100 mile trip and you’d swear she was going on an African Safari. I was fleetingly remembering how much she got teased about it, sometimes truly irritated her husband. And then my granddaughter spoke further.

She thought for a moment and said, “But I guess you are, too, Grandma.” My granddaughter obviously got some of my DNA, for she’s a Book Worm Deluxe, and I had noticed earlier that on the table at the place where she was seated for meals, lay a thick book, about like a hardback desktop dictionary, all about how to “Organize Stuff”. I assumed that’s what sparked the random comment when inquiring after her other grandmother’s health.

I looked around, and yes, I could discern why this child reckoned what both grandmothers did was “hoarding” or even “pack-ratting”, but I knew there to be a market difference. Trying not to delude myself, I considered that it was actually a serious effort at “prudent storage”.

Reconciling my attitude toward storing and stocking, while keeping in mind a recent conversation with a dear friend who was miffed over the way the word ‘hoard’ is bandied about nowadays, would possibly create a literally life-changing educational moment to be passed one-generation to another.

My friend has solid and interesting concepts regarding preparing and preservation of goods that run-the-gamut of acquisitions. She explained that to her point of view true ‘hoarding’ was possessing way more of something than you could ever begin to use, and when there is a huge need among others, and that by possessing it there is the satisfaction of ownership while aware others are doing without. Both of us, in prudent storage, feel a strong, strong sense of “stewardship”.

As she explained, “To paraphrase Job, ‘naked we came into the world – naked we shall leave’. We don’t really ‘own’ things – but keep a lot of it in reserves not only for ourselves but for others.”

So at that moment I decided to give my granddaughter a quick lesson – and in a gentle tone, frankly and sincerely hoping not to traumatize I told her WHY I had tubs and shelves hither and yon – and that given my druthers I would not be doing what I undertake as if it is a literal ‘calling’ – but that it is to make life easier for us – and others – if/when obtaining simple things we all take for granted becomes difficult, perhaps even impossible.

With my explanation, she seemed relieved to realize that with me, it was duty, whereas with her other grandmother, it does fall into the category of “personality disorder” caused perhaps from a combination of growing up poor and becoming a relic of the foster care system during formative years.

As a lifelong people watcher and retired journalist, I have noticed severe hoarding tendencies (often to an emotionally ill degree) in The Greatest Generation, that lived through and personally experienced The Great Depression. They came of age in a grave and hard time period followed by severe rationing of WW2. Such trauma ‘left its mark’ on ancestral behaviors for many of us. Then factor in that these two historic events arrived on the heels of the prior generation frequently recently arrived from The Old Country with little more than the clothes on their backs and determination and desire to ‘make good’ and begin acquiring anew in the New World.

This formed a learned-behavior mold as if set in concrete. For a lot of people acquiring and keeping items for ever and ever are as automatic as…breathing. Such tendencies to keep anything and everything occur, IMO, quite normally and easily. Some prefer to refer to it as their “collecting” – which is often simply a more sanitized label – and forgiving in society’s eyes.

Strictly in my own opinion there is finessing to do in declaring whether one is
a:
Hoarder
PackRat
Prudent Storer
or
Combo Personality

Each word-label above, bestowed on others by onlookers observing their relationship with material items, seem to have attached subtle attitudes as expressed by a somewhat prejudiced society, sometimes naïve individuals who are merely judging the actions of other people they don’t truly understand, delivering potential hurt in the process.

In legal contract-work, sometimes the parties lay out in the first clauses of a document the ‘legal definitions’ by which the agreement will be understood and executed.

Therefore, to clarify, in my opinion:

A Hoarder is someone who, at the “last minute”, as it is clear something is going to become difficult to obtain, arrives, intent on getting more than ‘their fair share’ when others are also in pursuit of an item. It is very “Me-Focused” and other peoples’ needs take the hind. Those who brave the elements and crowds on Black Friday following Thanksgiving exhibit this truly driven shopping phenomenon. For hoarders in the throes of acquiring limited goods, grasping and clawing is considered normal behavior, whereas sharing with others isn’t even a consideration. Likewise, black-market price-gouging compared to honest barter is probably an intent, a desire to profit from others’ misery, or to lord a wealth of a commodity over others — that which they need but do not have.

A Pack Rat is the most commonly viewed ‘stashing phenomenon’, often begun in childhood, when everything that comes into contact with one’s hand is worthy of saving. This outlook tends to intensify as a person gets older and sentimentality sets in during grade school years, increases when a hormonal, emotional, and sentimental teen, continues through college – term papers, certain textbooks – the largess of souvenirs. Then likely comes marriage – more to save – and with the birth of children – more mementos and clothing outgrown but stashed to ‘loan’ to others and get back when/if the immediate family needs them due to a new addition to the clan.

By then the habit has hardened, and with age it often further evolves until it is a serious issue, overwhelmingly so, and people know something needs done, but it’s such a gargantuan prospect, it’s difficult to even know where to start. The unvarnished truth is that it is extremely hard work to sort, discard, and give away usable items to others so that they might benefit. And taking pains not to bundle up boxes of “stuff” and pass them along, like an ugly game of Old Maid, so that your problems become someone else’s difficulty with which to deal.

Unless a person is definitely aware a friend can use an item, it is a good idea to offer it, leaving a lot of wiggle-room for them to decline, and plan on donating items to a charity where people in need can obtain an item for free or a small cost, rather than take the easy way out and risk burdening another.

People, who can’t assess items and usefulness accurately, can find themselves living in pure unadulterated clutter from which there is no escape, made miserable by possessions they have acquired which end up “owning” them. Often they become soooo overwhelmed at what effort it would require to sort and discard that they simply cannot face the task, and settle for simply adding to the stacks and layers, not knowing where to ‘start’ in cleaning it up. When

Pack Rat Personalities are moved to clean up – it tends to be an almost violent affair, as the entire family grabs armloads of items and tosses into the dumpster, and landfills reach capacity sooner than garbage-haulers expected because of brand new items actually going from the manufacture, to a retail store, then into the landfill without ever being used. While a cleaned-up environment may feel good, most who go this route also feel guilty and wasteful and regretful over depriving others of useful items in their heat-of-the-moment desire to just get rid of it at all costs.

The Prudent Storer is someone who looks into the future, sees potential needs and either shortages or wildly escalating prices, and over the long haul acquires basic items and stores them carefully, as compactly as possible, in order to get the most value out of repository areas that allow for quality preservation. The Prudent Storer may notice items go up in price, especially dry goods with quite unlimited shelf life, and make volume purchases in order to have tremendous savings in the future using “cheaply purchased” items bought ahead.

In my experience Prudent Storers tends to be caring and compassionate individuals, who are stockpiling items in a sane and smooth manner – not wildly grabbing and clawing with a Black Friday ‘hoard mentality’ – and they consider human beings’ needs. If finances and space allows, Prudent Storers, the Ant types, are all too well aware of the Grasshopper Type, and many caringly and compassionately purchase and store extra nonperishable’s for friends and family who may’ve not been as foresighted and will give away a toothbrush, bar of soap, spool of thread, sewing needle, or work out a realistic barter. (And this form-of-payment plan is probably a good idea in some specific cases, no matter how ‘small’ the item is, as it can help retrain a Grasshopper to understand value, work ethic, and not perpetuate the Entitlement Syndrome we all deal with, in those who expect to have their needs freely met by others at their expense.)

The Combo Personality is probably a category where most of us who are Aware and Prepare fall, and we may look inward and honestly inventory our relationship to ‘things ‘n stuff’ and recognizes all three perspectives coexist. Just as in life one goes from infancy, to puberty, to adulthood, many of us can literally look around and see items filling our homes, our attics, the garage, outbuildings, and classify them. Often one notes purchases made in hoarding mode, other items piling up via bouts of packratism, and (if fortunate!) the satisfaction of seeing a lot of Prudent Storing done for all the right reasons.

Hoarders and Pack Rats tend to settle into a status quo rut. The Combo Personality, fortunately, has enough Prudent Storer present, to have a desire to bring “order out of chaos” as my teenage granddaughter apparently does, sufficient enough to check a book out of the library to get some direction. It’s tough work to be a Prudent Storer, and to make room for the true basics one needs to survive, and get rid of the clutter that can make an environment more difficult, especially if a family ends up with refugees from worse places seeking shelter in a secure abode. Times what they are, with the USG even running advertisements suggesting citizens prepare for…something. (See YouTube Link below.) Therefore it seems prudent to make more room for people and take up less space with useless junk and impractical items that simply lend to more chaos during disastrous times when there’ll be more than enough confusion and stress to go around.

It’s been said for decades, or more, that “the longest journey begins with one step” and bringing order to chaos in the home, to pave the way for prudent storage is as simple as picking up a heavy duty garbage bag and wandering through the home judging and dealing with items one after the other after another, and getting rid of pure-D-clutter (catalogs, flyers, broken and non-repairable items, children’s toys it was easier to toss back into a toy box than into the trash where better suited to ‘belong’.) Be aware, it won’t be easy. And just like lifting weights – work your way up to it. Throw away items you don’t care about, become accustomed to doing so, and you’ll be able to eventually chuck some of the silly sentimental things that clutter up your existence, whereas the real souvenirs are memories in your mind. If you have to flee and leave it all behind – the choice was fast, perhaps brutal, but in other ways, appallingly easy to make. Life or death! What is most valuable is what you choose to transport with you.

Some people know they will probably have to flee to a safer environment. Others are aware that the taproot has sunk deep, and they’ve made decisions over the years, to stay put able to weather many kinds of misfortune. Regardless of where you live, what your future plans to stay or go, do yourself a favor and look around.

Do some of the possessions you regard give you…buyer’s remorse? Probably you acquired them while in Hoarding Mode…

Do some closets and storage areas make you wanna get out some gas and a box of matches and reduce it to ashes to be freed of it? Probably Pack Rat Mode.

Do you have the capacity if someone actually ASKS you for an item to be able to locate it, and to retrieve it from storage in half hour or less? Probably Prudent Storage. But it can be improved upon, by setting up an organizational system that’ll cut your time in locating anything down to five minutes – maybe less – and find the items clean, protected, neatly stored, and amazingly convenient for handling amounts that could otherwise have “your possessions owning YOU instead of YOU owning needed items for a better future!

Stay tuned for Part Two

This entry was posted on Monday, February 8th, 2010 at 11:04 am and is filed under Authors, Economics, Essie Feldhacher, Opinion, Preparedness. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.