Lives

I obsess.  I feel I've written this any number of times before, and yet I'm writing it again regardless.  Obsessions carry me away and occupy my thought processes until there is no space for anything--reasonable, intelligent, or otherwise.  My mental processes simply become overpowered by one element.  And altogether too often, the center of this obsession becomes human, be it one human being or an aspect of the human mentality.

I get obsessed with people's lives.  That's part of the reason I read so many blogs and try to find out as much about anybody as I can.  It doesn't matter whether it's someone I know or not, whether it's someone I really care about or not, so long as it is a person with a life and a story to tell, I want to know everything and anything. I try to find out as much as possible even about people I dislike, if only because I want to know as much as I can.

It fits my introvert nature, in a way, I guess.  I like being quiet, I like listening.  I've never been much of a talker, although once I start, it is occasionally next to impossible to get me to stop.  That's just the way I am.  I'd rather know other people's lives and opinions than my own.  Somewhere along the way, I fell in love with people's lives, and since then, I've been trying to learn as much about them as I can.  This collection is for me and nobody else.  I keep tales and secrets for nobody to know but myself.

In this way, I learn about people and about life.  I sit here and absorb as many stories as I can, discover as many lives as people are willing to let me.

Tell me a story, show me a secret, bury me in your fears.  I want to know.  I want to understand.  Thoughts, emotions, opinions, reflections, philosophies, favorites, passions, pains.  Anything and everything, I want to know, about as many people as possible.  Some people collect stamps, others collect spoons, still others have more arcane interests, others perfectly tame.  Some show their collections, others keep them hidden.  Certain people even shell out more money than they could expect to repay for valuables.

In this same way, I am a collector.  I don't collect objects, I collect stories of lives.  I put together fragments of people to try and understand them, assets and flaws alike.