Nothing but symbols of what they craved for

In Greek legend, King Tantalos was cursed with never being able to reach the delicious fruit hanging on branches just in front of him that would retract as soon as he reached out to them. Collectors suffer the reverse curse. They reach the objects of their longing only to find that those objects are nothing but symbols of what they craved for, that it was the longing itself, and the ecstatic moment of acquisition, that fooled them – for a moment only – into believing that in this object lay the key to satisfying their hunger. The enchantment wears off as soon as we touch what we desired. It is just not confirmed collectors who suffer this fate. This is what sends us all into shops, trying to buy contentment, beauty, completeness, only to find that, once the intoxication of the moment is gone, we need another dose of it, that is the elation of the moment that makes us happy, not the addition to our wardrobe. Like beautiful princesses turning into old hags, a coach and horses being transformed into a pumpkin with toads in harness, and a proud castle imploding into a muddy hovel, we find that our desires alight for a while on objects only to take flight when we finally believe we have caught up with them. What we hold in our hands crumbles, while our longing, temporarily assuming the shape of this thing or that, remains dancing in front of us, enticingly, maddeningly. Like Casanova we are left chasing after it, trying to satisfy immaterial passions with matter, with moments of fulfilment, proving like him that we still can conquer, that is not too late, while Leporello stands by, bemusedly reciting the catalogue of our follies.

Leporello and his master [fragment]

uit: To have and to hold : an intimate history of collectors and collecting - Philipp Blom

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