Rick, what started my reflections upon this question was what I understood as related in my first post.
It appears that when we encounter something we think about that something not objectively, in isolation from all our previous experience, but subjectively . It appears that we cannot but react in this way. So, when we encounter something that relates to our field of collecting we are already thinking about that something in terms of what we already have in our minds. In other words, we cannot but help to "buy the story".
Perhaps not the story that is laid before us by Mr. Shonk, but rather the story that we probably self generated in our own sub-conscious from various inputs over a length of time. If asked, we could probably not even identify the "story" that is influencing us.
My enquiry is an attempt to get each of us to try to look into the very foundations of his own urge to collect.
We might have one person who identifies his collecting urge with investment, perhaps because of something he read or some experience that has convinced him he is wiser to place money into matchbox cars than into blue chips.
We might have somebody who begins to float (mentally , a la morphine) when he handles particular type of paper weight.
Perhaps a type of hairpin might take somebody back to childhood in grandma's house, so that person collects hairpins, in order to revisit a gentler time with each handling of a hairpin. The collector of hairpins probably does not consciously know this, but he or she does know that when the hairpin is handled an indefinable warm glow occurs.
All sorts of different things could cause all sorts of different reactions, and these different causes are currently what my thoughts are concerned with.
You told us that you "read a short story", and that awkened your interest in the keris. Very well, accepted. But what did that short story implant into your mind, and what effect does that implantation have upon your perception and appreciation of the keris?
Do you understand where I'm going with this?
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