If you could help me, I’d be greatly obliged. The problem, in part, is watches. I think about them too much. I think about them upon waking and upon sleeping. I currently own eight, and I’m constantly racking my brain trying to figure if I can have that many or if I should have more or if I should have fewer. I cannot settle on the configuration, arrangement, dial color, price point, and so on.
I should tell you I suffer from a condition I call wrist rotation anxiety. What this means is that I constantly fret over which watch I should be wearing, and no matter which watch I choose it feels like the wrong watch. As much as I may like the watch on my wrist, I feel like I’m neglecting the other watches. I am constantly trying on different watches in my collection throughout the day, and I can never settle on just one. Some days I wear up to six different watches for fear that I may be neglecting them the way one worries about feeding the fish or watering the flowers or giving affection to a child. Or to use a more loathsome analogy: The way a man fears neglecting a concubine in his harem.
Watches are not people, for God’s sake. They don’t care if I wear them or not. They’re inanimate objects. But owing to the disease raging inside my head I’ve given these horological instruments life. It’s absolutely disgusting. If you have a pill that will cure me of this illness, please point me to it.
I would be happier, I often think, if I just had one watch, a $15 soulless, utilitarian Casio at that, and therefore did not have to make a gut-wrenching decision over which watch to wear. But if I had only one watch, even an expensive $15K piece of power jewelry like a limited edition Panerai Submersible, I would still get bored because there’s a part of me that hungers for variety. With one watch I am miserable because I lack choices and color variation. But with several watches, I constantly fret that I’m favoring one at the others I’m neglecting.
I have a lot on my plate: My mother is seventy-six and is on dialysis for her failed kidney. Her second husband didn’t leave her any money or a life insurance policy, and I need to help her out financially. I’ve got twin daughters who need lots of my time and resources. The last thing I need is a distraction, but distraction I have: My watch obsession is a full-time job like working overtime for the FBI during a manhunt. But I never find the killer. I just go in circles.
Round and round I go, as I try on different watches throughout the day in a state of heightened anxiety. A guy I met on my social media watch club (it’s a closed club so I can’t give you the name of it) told me he had the same problem but resolved his torment. To quote from him: “I got out of the mode of switching watches everyday. What I do now is wear the same watch for an entire week. This helps to get a fuller enjoyment from the watch. Also, it cuts down on the resetting so often. Good luck in rehab, bruh.”
What a punch to my gut: Somehow, this guy who only knows me through my watch hobby on our social media platform could infer I am a sick man in need of therapy.
Do you see how I wear my illness on my sleeve? I’m easy to figure out. My watch hobby doesn’t make me happy. It’s evidence of the raging dumpster fire within.
So here’s what I need you to do.
Possibility One, help me terminate the obsession completely. I prefer not to rely on drugs, but I’m open to your expertise.
Possibility Two, help me accept managing a large watch collection without driving myself crazy with the aforementioned wrist rotation anxieties.
Possibility Three, help me whittle down my collection to a small, manageable number so I can think about other, more pressing challenges I need to face.
Here’s the dilemma as far as I can see it: Too few watches spells boredom. But too many spells a sense of chaos and insanity.
Because I am a college English and Critical Thinking instructor, I frame the above dilemma as a war inside my head between the forces of Dionysus and Apollo. On the one hand, my internal Dionysian forces are those of chaos, adrenaline, and ecstasy, the part of my brain that rages for more and more watches, the more expensive the better, as I am driven by Dionysus to binge on watch purchases, mostly on the Internet at the click of a mouse. On the other hand, my internal Apollonian forces are control, discipline, and organization, the fewer watches the better, as I am driven by Apollo to be spare and minimalistic in my watch collection. Apollo wants me to be a “Watch Ninja,” a content man who is content with a small collection of three or four fine timepieces. But Dionysus wants me to be a Watch Glutton, someone with a bloated, unmanageable collection of perhaps one hundred watches, scattered throughout the house, some displayed garishly in hideous oversized lacquered watch boxes, others hidden in various nooks and crannies throughout the house.
I cannot seem to reconcile these two warring forces within me. As you know, Doctor, a divided house will not stand.
