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One interesting set of objects I thought about is a bunch of pens and pencils. They are not only used to create expressions of one's thoughts, but they in and of themselves show a sort of history of their owner. Many aspects of a pen, from the type to the wear on it indicate various characteristics of the owner.
A person may choose to use a pencil, perhaps indicating that they often like to revise documents, or drawings. Something that can be confirmed by looking at the wear on the eraser. I remember back in the earlier years of my education, I often would use my nails, or the edge of the desk to create notches in the yellow sides of the pencil, sometimes out of boredom and sometimes out of creativity, most likely a combination of both. I also remember using other pencils and pens to carve designs into the sides of the pencils, something that did create a large variety of designs. Most obviously, the length of the pencil is indicative of how much use it has seen. That in and of itself is not a terribly interesting measure, but if one looks at a collection of pencils, you can see if the person has a lot of short pencils, or a mix, or maybe a few long ones. Pens are a bit harder to show a history on simply because the are less creativley pliant objects, that is, its more difficult to change them. However, it is fairly easy to tell a few characteristics of the user. If the pens all have chewed caps and ends, it is fair to conclude that the user has been chewing on their pens out of habit. If one observes my pen collection, they would find many pens that are not heavily used, which I suppose indicates a lot of wastefulness(how low does the ink go before you throw out a pen?). I doubt such observations apply to a very expensive pen, which is closer to jewlery than it is to a writing instrument. Still, looking at what people write with can give a sense of the habits that people have maintained, and perhaps a bit of insight into their personality. |