To all things EXTINCT!

When we say extinct, we always think about the animals or plants that have ceased to exist on this earth. But can only living things be "extinct"? I looked into the definition of extinct, and here is what I found at the Online Free Dictionary:

1) No longer existing or living;

2) No longer burning or active;

3) No longer in use;

What I have in my mind, and want to pen down would coincide with the third definition. A hobby that is no longer in use. A hobby that has grown out of style. A hobby that once was the most famous amongst children and adults alike. A hobby, that was Stamp Collecting.

I was channel surfing when I glimpsed at an old old movie, and the actor was holding his stamp collection, and something triggered in me. I used to collect stamps. When I was small, this used to be my hobby.

I wouldn't say with all my heart that this was my choice of a hobby. I most definitely wasn't the kid to be sitting at one place and doing something like this, those things bored me. It was indeed my mother who voiced her opinion to both me and my sister that this was a good hobby to have. And anyways, she had collected stamps as a child, so what was wrong with it and she would like to have someone to pass these onto.

I was enticed. My mother seemed to approve this project, and my sister seemed fully interested too. I doted on my mother (and still do) and I wasn't going to let my sister have everything (and I still won't). Anyhow, there were these small small, jagged edged, pieces of papers with various colors, people, places, animals that caught my eye. So I thought, "why not"? In any case, now I had an answer when someone asked me the question, "what are your hobbies?". I was now equipped with evidence to show that I was an ardent stamp collector.

Thus began my stamp collecting. Some rare ones we got from our mother and the rest came from our father, who brought anything and everything that his mail brought him. We, my sister and me, fought over who got the best stamps and who had the most stamps. Our parents bought us identical stamp books. They were huge - big green hard cover with a thin gold border going around it, and the pages had a blank border at the top and the rest of the page was square ruled. We sorted the stamps by country and then the countries by alphabetical order. Wrote the name of the country at the blank border and carefully pasted the stamps. This whole process took months, because untidiness was not a virtue. Impatient as I was, I had to go through the turmoil, since I had to show off my stamps to my friends.

I learnt a lot from this hobby of mine. About countries, and where they are on this earth of ours. Whenever you come across a country you haven't heard before, it is so exciting to find out where it is and which continent it belongs to. Stamps I think, teach you a lot about diverse cultures and countries. A stamp will portray the best the country has to offer. And when you look at it, you begin to understand that in different countries, there are different people, so vastly different. Different religions, different animals, different celebrations. To a child, as well as to an adult this brings a clear message and understanding. No matter how different we are, culturally, socially, religiously, we are all alike - we print stamps!! :)

Today, I honestly don't know what has happened to that hobby of collecting stamps. Is it still there? I barely hear about it. Then again, where are the resources for a hobby such as this? We are so dependent on Email that the need to mail a letter or something is quite non-existent. How is it that the children of today gather their stamps? How does a parent teach his or her son or daughter, the art of collecting, the art of patience in collecting? This is why I think that Stamp collecting is extinct, or nearing extinction. There is nothing that any of us can do actually, we cannot stand against the advances of technology, we rely too much on it. We've probably lost a good one there, but that is life - it changes constantly.

However, having said all this, I must say that, in the end, I betrayed my own hobby. Something else was creeping into my mind, something else was grabbing my love, something else was trully thrilling me more. I was growing more and more fond of my Lego collection. I had names for all the Lego people, I made up their lives and I played endlessly. I made families from all of them. Almost all the fathers in those Lego families behaved just like my father - the righteous man, the man who provided and gave everything to his family and the mothers acted just like my mother - house wife, great mother, did the cooking, taking care of the family, etc. And as you can imagine, the children went to school, laughed, played and bickered constantly - just like me and my sister. That was my life, my Lego people, oh how I loved them! There is a rumour in my family that I even made all of them stand in a line and taught them Kandyan dancing. Although I have no recollection of this, knowing myself, I cannot dispute it either.

Yet, there was one small hitch. Although I played with it, this Lego collection belonged to both my sister and me. Whenever there was a fight or an argument, my hot-headed sister would carry off HER part of the Lego and hide them somewhere. This caused major problems for me. Suddenly, houses dissappeared from my Legoland, but the worst was the disappearence of family members. Some families were left desolate with only the father and the son. Some families were left without any adults. I was only a kid, I did not know how to cope with situations like that. My sister's trump card was the Hospital. It belonged to her, and when these rifts between us arose, the Hospital disappeared too. I don't have to tell you what that did to a country!!

So in the end, after years of this struggle we finally came to a compromise. She needed something in return if she was to give me FULL ownership of her Lego. So I gave her the next best thing. The thing that she would have killed for! My stamp collection! Yes, I gave all of my stamps to her, but in return, I had the satisfaction and joy of enjoying MY Lego and teaching them as much Kandyan dancing as I pleased, without any worry that parts of this country that I built will suddenly go missing! Even today, I have no regrets - somethings in life are just worth it!!