As in, while *most* people don't value old newspapers so much that they fill their living space with them,
and *most* people don't enjoy the company of dozens of felines.... some do.
Similarly, while most of us (99.9%) are untroubled and unfazed by the sheer gravitational force -- constantly
drawing more assets towards its own center -- of a really, really, really large pile of wealth, for a select few that
astronomical physical PULL is a life-affecting issue.
Either way, what may have begun innocently enough, with a small pile of accumulated good reads or a couple or
three kitties (or consider the early, start-up/entrepreneur years of Ebeneezer Scrooge's business career), it all turns
into something resembling the Sorcerer's Apprentice. ....I once had the misfortune of spending a couple or three days
with someone who was both a hoarder and a miser. "Annie" was only hours from a sheriff's eviction. No one
in her family, none of her kids, none of her other 'friends' would help her pack up all those valuable THINGS filling
the attic, both floors and basement. So it was me and two Mexican-(not quite legally)-American gentlemen hired
off the street for ten dollars an hour packing semi-priceless paintings, sculptures, carvings and other objets d'art
into stacks of plastic totes. Every one of those THINGS had a value (known to the last penny) but there was no
oxygen in the house. It was stifling in that place, with the collective weight of all those valuable assets pushing the
air from everyone's lungs. With the clock ticking down and the Sheriff due to arrive within hours -- and big piles of
stuff still unpacked -- it was like waiting for Death. The inevitable moment when a normal person would figure out,
"no, you can't take it with you, maybe there are just a few other things making life worth living" but that never
happened. It was 3 in the morning but I had to leave, with "Annie" working the phone, planning to move into a much
nicer place in a few weeks. By herself. It was a steal of a deal, the new house, but I never saw the miser again so
I don't know how it all turned out.
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