The Most Toys

I found myself thinking today about the saying, “he who dies with the most toys wins.”

It can’t ever have been anything other than a joke, can it? That the word is “toys” rather than “treasures” suggests a wry sentiment.

Imagine believing in it at face value though. To die with the most toys! The most junk. To finish one’s life with the largest possible number of complicated material things with moving parts that had to be made under duress by other people using finite materials torn from the living Earth.

To die in a state in which your relatives will need to spend months or longer poring over it all, assessing each “toy” and arguing over it all, when they could be living their lives.

And then I remembered that I’ve written about all this before, albeit without quoting “the most toys.” As you were.

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Robert Wringham is the editor of New Escapologist. He also writes books and articles. Read more at wringham.co.uk

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