#145 Solid Objects- Virginia Woolf
We like to collect things, shiny things that make us feel
good, make us look good, or just make us reflect upon ourselves.
“…a mind thinking of something else, any object mixes itself
so profoundly with the stuff of thought that is loses its actual form and
recomposes itself a little differently in an ideal shape which haunts the brain
when we least expect it.”
John was a promising politician when he began collecting
these items obsessively. His things were all he cared about, even when he could
no longer even pretend a practical use for them anymore:
“The finest specimens he would bring home and place upon his
mantelpiece, where, however, their duty was more and more of an ornamental
nature, since papers needing a weight to keep them down became scarcer and
scarcer.”
Beware of collecting nice but useless shiny objects, before
long all you’ve collected is wasted time.
Notable Passage: “You know how the body seems to shake
itself free from an argument, and to apologize for a mood of exaltation;
flinging itself down and expressing in the looseness of its attitude a
readiness to take up with something new—whatever it may be that comes next to
hand.”
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