We never grow out of it.

Imagine:

It's nondenominational-mid-winter-gift-giving-day. You've just opened the gift you wanted with all of your young being. Your parents haven't had a moment's peace since you decided that this is what you want.

Somewhere deep down inside you know that this gift cost more than your folks could afford. That you should be more thankful for the act of the giving than the gift itself. Or maybe not. How many kids really think on that mature an emotional level?

The gift, though. This they understand.

So you have the thing. You cherish it. All other things are set aside as this consumes you. Interactions with other things becomes all about the new thing. Unless, of course, it's part of a set. Even then, though, it's still more about the new thing than any of the old.

Everywhere you go, the new thing goes. For weeks. Months, if it was a really great thing.

Then, one day, you play with one of your other things. Just for a few minutes. The new thing is still the best. Later that week, it happens again.

Eventually you will put the new thing on a shelf and it will no longer be the one.

It will just be one.

If you are a careful steward of your things, it may come back out to play occasionally. If it's a good fit with the others, you may even still incorporate it often.

Still... it is now one of many; no longer the thing.

We still do this same thing as adults: as the exceptional becomes the commonplace, the magnificent is taken for granted.

Is there a word for emotional entropy? Is this fading of interest as inevitable as it is universal?

Don't tell me you've outgrown it; I know you haven't. You do, too.