Philosophical musings about the world's biggest stash...

I just stumbled upon these images of what might be the world's biggest stash. Clearly, my yarn stash is of amateur proportions compared to this.

My response to those images are an odd mixture of relief (I'm not that bad!), wonder (look at all that yarn!), and concern (am I at risk?). Now, I ask you: should a yarn stash of such proportions be a lifelong ambition or a cautionary tale? In other words, when does "a lot of yarn" become "too much yarn"?

What is the purpose of stash yarn? and when is a large stash a problem? Like any of life's big questions, isn't it all relative? If you have lots of room for it, you're not going broke buying it, and you live a functional life outside of your yarn stash (as it seems to be the case for this woman), it's probably just like any other hobby. Between you and me, it seems improbable that she'll ever actually use all this yarn. At some point, a transition probably occurs from buying yarn for knitting purposes to collecting yarn for its own sake, like others collect stamps or commemorative spoons.

I think it's still realistic for me to think that I'll knit (or crochet) all the yarn I now have in the stash, but how do you know when you cross that line? And what should you do when you get to that point? Stop buying yarn? That seems unlikely. Give some away? Sell it? Or be honest with yourself and admit that you're now a "yarn collector"?

p.s. I stumbled on this link on Annette Petavy's blog, who herself got it from Shannon Okey. I'm not the only one to question the size of my stash in response to those images. Annette Petavy has stopped using a stash counter. She says: "Les pelotes, c'est le bonheur. Et on ne peut jamais avoir trop de bonheur." In other words, "skeins are happiness. And you can never have too much happiness." What do you think?