Gear.

I have piles of bike stuff I never use. Gadgets and doohickeys that caught my eye at a bike shop or online that I used a few times before seeing the folly of my thought process or never got around to using for whatever purpose I envisioned. I do this with every sport and pastime I take up. It's part of the process of actually figuring out what has utility for me and what serves only to prop up the bicycle accessory industry.
 
I also have a lot of stuff that has utility, but that I can't use all at once. The most obvious examples are the 4 bikes in the garage, all ready to ride at a minute's notice, and me with only two legs. I don't feel the need to defend my ownership of them, as I like riding each one on different days for different purposes. Since my total investment on all of them doesn't add up to the retail price of what the bike magazines considers a mid-range bicycle these days, I don't feel too guilty having a quiver. I'm a semi-intelligent online shopper and a semi-competent bike wrench, so I add or subtract from the collection when the opportunity and inspiration strikes. Parts from one frame migrate to another frame and take on new life.
 
That explains the piles of drivetrain components, wheelsets, and other miscellaneous bike parts that little my house. You never know when a really cool project might pop up, so it pays to have the goods on-hand to quickly bring the dream to the road. Plus, as bikes leave the rotation, I can build them up to sell to partially fund the next experiment.
 
There's the frames that are hanging of the ceiling, waiting to be built up or passed on. There's the cabinet of tires, tubes, chains, brake pads, and other consumables. There's the bins of small parts from projects I've long forgotten about that might prove useful in the future. There's the boxes of junk I keep just because I hate throwing it away.
 
There's the tools I use to keep this whole circus rolling. Some of them are built for hands far more skilled than mine, but I like the heft of a tool that was made to perform with precision for a very long time. Some I misplace with alarming frequency, only to have them reappear long after I needed them. Some have twins for that very reason.
 
In other words, I have a lot of stuff. Stuff I don't really need. Stuff that cost an awful lot of money. Stuff that I should probably take better care of. Stuff that, at the end of the day, doesn't really have an impact on how much fun I have on a bike. It's just stuff.
 
Life would be simpler if, like a lot of my peers, I had just one or two bikes. If I didn't have a wandering eye for seductively-laid carbon fiber. If I just let professionals do the work for me. Streamlined. Clean. Uncluttered.
 
That wouldn't be me.
 
I don't need all this stuff. Some of it I likely don't even want. However, it's part of the experience for me. It's part of the fun. It doesn't make me faster or skinnier or more skilled or somehow better than anyone else.
 
It just makes me... me.
 
I'm good with that.