The Crossover: Remember how you got here
Lately I’ve consolidated so much that there isn’t much left to logically consolidate.
I’ve transitioned from being someone who goes after a wide range of cards to one driven by curating an intentional collection. Over the last couple of years, the per-card emotional and financial value of my collection has climbed, but as that’s gone up, so have my expectations.
There’s some good in that. My collection is becoming a combination of the unique, the personal, and the fulfilling, which to me is the sweet spot. I collect cards of players who I like or move me in some way.
I’ve also grown impatient. I feel like part of me has forgotten how to put in the work, how to lay a foundation, build stories atop that foundation, and make something worthwhile. I’ve worked toward a couple of penthouses and now I want more penthouses, but without the hassle and time and effort required to build those pesky foundations. Poor me. I want all of the rewards but none of the process that got me here. That’s unsustainable.
During this past weekend’s Crossover, Josh addressed this via a question from @CardsandCardio, who among other things asked how consolidation and the overall increase of hobby IQ might affect more readily accessible cards.
“For this person asking the question, I get the sense they’re excited about this transition for themselves—and they should be excited about it, because it’s more fun to have more rare cards in a lower quantity and a higher quality,” Josh said. “So I’d say, keep doing it, and then as new funds become available and you begin to add to your collection, don’t worry about continuing this new high ceiling you have where every new card that you bring in needs to be on par with these super expensive ones.”
What Josh is saying—or at least how I interpret it—is that there is no workaround here. If you want to keep building a unique collection with scarce, emotionally impactful cards, there are two options: 1) Throw money at it, unrealistically assuming there are infinite financial resources, or 2) Remember what got you there in the first place.
“You can keep having fun bringing in these lower-value cards, and then sort of do it again,” Josh said. “That’s what I love about trading and consolidating: you never have to worry about burning your money on something. You can always just sell it and buy a better card.”
Josh, in his thoughtful way, poses an existential question: do you care about the cards? If so, get back to work. It’s hard because I’ve had a taste of success, of putting in the work and being rewarded. The first time someone on IG commented on my post, “Wow that’s a big card,” part of me changed, and not for the better, because at that moment I became 15 percent more interested in impressing others and 15 percent less interested in making myself happy.
Why do I collect? Escape? Nostalgia? For the satisfaction of building something I like to look at?
For ego?
A little. Hopefully not too much. But probably more than I’m willing to admit.