This is no small change for me. In the past I’ve had a CD collection that fluctuated in number between 200 and 300. If you have friends like I do, these collections tend to shrink against your will. The difference now is, I want that collection to shrink. I want to sell, dump and give away. If I can'tremember the last time I listened to it, I don't want it around, and that is how 75 of my previously precious CDs were recently converted to $90 in my pocket.

As a collector, this is sacrilege. The collector always wants more. The collector finds comfort in thinking any part of the collection is accessible years or decades later, whether it will be accessed or not. The collector finds peace in owning and having, storing and organizing. The collector is more able to think of him or herself as a connoisseur while the collection grows. And this isn’t all about showing off. The collector loves to impress at parties, but the real collector gets off on admiring the collection in private.

I was like that. I loved the fact that I had more CDs than my friends. I was more in the know. I had better taste in music. I liked to think I could listen to Smashing Pumpkins 20 years from the day I bought it, and that was appealing to me.

Now, I could care less. The friends I still see don’t spend much time talking about music. Rolling Stone is no longer delivered to my house, and I rarely listen to the radio for music. It’s not a status thing for me anymore – it isn’t socially important to like one band or another. I’m only interested in listening as an enjoyable experience. That’s it. I’m totally in a vacuum, totally immune from outside influence. There is no “too popular,� or “overplayed.� If a song gets overplayed, it’s because I’ve kept it in the CD player too long. Quality, in my estimation, is all that matters.

I trace my new behavior back to my Dad’s VHS collection, which began the day he first visited Sam’s Club. He had never been a collector as far as I knew, unlike me, but there was something about those cheap movies on cassette that he could never pass up. My Dad’s VHS collection must be over 500 titles now. 500! As a young collector and movie buff, I loved it. But I remember, when we were looking for something to watch in that sea of titles, we spent a lot of time searching. Even with all those movies, there really was NOTHING TO WATCH. I tried to think about how big the collection would have to be for us not to feel like that - was it 1000? – 2000? – but I eventually I realized it wouldn’t matter. It would never be enough. Bruce Springsteen sang about “57 channels and nothing on.� He was right. It’s never enough.

So maybe I realized it early on with movies, and it just hit me with music. I don't want to look back anymore, only forward. I want to listen to new things, develop my taste, and move on. I want to feel the rush of loving a new song more than I want to reminisce with something familiar. Maybe I’m just getting older, shifting into a new stage, and this is just an indicator of a new outlook, or maybe I’m having an early mid-life crisis. Maybe it’s about a lack of time, or maybe it’s about a lack of shelf-space. Maybe it’s about freedom from the material.

Whatever it is, I like the new philosophy. I’m now trying to keep an “active collection.� 75 CDs at any given time. When a new one comes in, the least desirable gets the boot. Travel light and gather no moss. Maybe I’m not a collector anymore. Maybe I’m a collector... who recycles.

So I apply to business school at the University of Minnesota. Enough of this nickel and dime – I was going to get the ticket to the big bucks – the MBA. And what do you know, I get in. It made me feel good, like I did have some talent. Entrance tests, limited enrollment, and I still made it. I’d blend my nice, plush, cuddly liberal arts smarts with the cold concrete financial practicality of an MBA. Who lays off someone like that? No sane boss! I’d be in the management club, armed with a degree and my newly-practiced secret handshake.

So I’m still here, in school, 4.5 years later, and even though it’s been a haul, I had still remained relatively excited about what I’m going to get for my $900-per-credit degree once I’m done later this year. I was still feeling pretty special. Then two things happened that made me feel that, in the past five years, everyone but me completed their MBA. Everyone in the world but me.

Situation #1: I’m talking with the carpenter who’s rebuilding a room in my house one day when he casually mentions he’s a retired stockbroker who has an undergraduate degree in civil engineering and, of course, an MBA. I’ve know him for about a month, and he’s just about the nicest, most humble, thoughtful guy in the world. The kind of aw shucks guy everyone likes. And this guy has his MBA??? OK, so maybe I’m not so special…

Situation #2: My wife and I have our neighbor over for wine and cheese so she can show us her pictures from the trip she just took to Italy. Since we’ve lived next door, we’ve know her as a librarian who was forced into early retirement last year. Turns out she is the former HEAD of the Minneapolis public libraries, and, of course, she has her MBA. Confirmation has been officially received – I am not so special.

Now given these occurrences, what could be next? I may take my garbage out next week, greet my neighbor on his backstep, and find out that he has an MBA. The customer service rep at the local utility might casually mention as she waits for the computer to bring up my information that, yes, she too is finishing her MBA. My cousin, who I haven’t seen in a while, possibly will show up, and when asked what he's been up to, tell me he’s been hiding out as he completed his MBA.

What about my mailman? The guy I bought a rake from at the hardware store? The woman behind the counter at Starbucks? The guy who’s just a little too old to be riding that skateboarding down the street? From now on, in my mind, all MBAs. I haven’t been getting ahead all these years, I’m just feebly keeping pace with all my neighbors, all the garbagemen, all the skater-dudes with the 70’s hair. So much for feeling special.

This blog isn’t me trying to win a Pulitzer, I’m just going to try to write as much as possible. I’m aiming for 50% of the content being reasonably entertaining. Please let me know if you have a strong reaction either way at jkelly@horsethief.net.