Hoarding

While aimlessly clicking through the channels, we stumbled upon the show Hoarders: Buried Alive and found ourselves rubbernecking. Wanted to drive by faster and on to the next station but unable to peel our eyes away from this personal disaster.

In the show, extreme hoarders are literally buried in their own home. Unable to navigate from room to room, possessions buried under possessions. Infestations of material accumulation co-mingling with excrement from both pets and pests. It is awful and sad to witness.

In the arc of an episode, a psychologist comes in and - in an all too neat way - is able to diagnose the hoarding - itself a mental health condition - as a coping mechanism related to some loss or trauma. It reflects a need for some kind of control - ironic as their situation seems out of it.

When watching it is easy to think, “well that could never be me” and yet….

To hoard is “to accumulate things and closely guard them, often in a greedy or excessive way.”

While most people may not hoard material possessions to the extent seen on these shows, many do hoard money, advantage and in the words of Richard Reeves, dreams.

I interviewed Richard a few years ago about his book Dream Hoarders: How the American Upper Middle Class Is Leaving Everyone Else in the Dust, Why That Is a Problem, and What to Do about It.

He spoke about how people who are already plenty well off seek to hoard advantages. Regressive tax codes, zoning that prohibits affordable housing in their towns, schools segregated by class, extra tutors for their already high achieving children and so on and so on.

Presumably this hoarding may come from a similar place; a desire for control to combat fear and insecurity.

I wonder if a TV show about this type of hoarding would elicit the same kind of reaction from viewers; some combination of disgust, pity or sadness.

The desire to accumulate and guard what we have is on one hand understandable. But there is a huge difference between saving and hoarding. Particularly when the hoarding harms not just ourselves but others.

In thinking about this topic, I stumbled upon another TV show about excess - Mad Men. It is a show I long resisted watching having been one of these “men” myself for a large portion of my career. My fear being that if I looked in this mirror, I would not like what I saw. That same affliction occurred in this particular episode. Don Draper, the charismatic and inconsistent conscience of the show, has just agreed to sell his work soul for five years in a deal that would presumably set him up for life financially. As he walks away from the celebration, he encounters the apparition of a former colleague, Bert Cooper, who breaks into a dance number to the tune of “The Best Things in Life Are Free.” As Cooper joyfully sings:

The moon belongs to everyone

The best things in life are free

The stars belong to everyone

They gleam there for you and for me

The flowers in spring, the robins that sing

The moonbeams that shine

They're yours, they're mine

And love can come to everyone

The best things in life are free

And love can come to everyone

The best things in life are free.

The camera cuts to Draper, tears welling in his eyes, realizing the truth in the song but not in the life he was living.

The best things in life are not hoarded, they are shared.

Look around, what are you hoarding and what are you sharing?

This Week’s Recommendation: Go outside one night and watch the moon. Over time it will move across the night sky - almost imperceptibly. Now take a moment to realize that you share that moon with the almost 120 billion people who have ever lived.

Consider sharing this with… well anyone.