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A shelving not quite inspiring confidence. A bookshelf is a form of social signaling, marking class, worth, status. This one is made of compressed dust to which it shall return.
Google "no participation trophies in life." You'll get hundred of results, get NYTimes debates. Rapid opinions, Millennial castigation. This despite childhood development studies saying you should reward effort, not achievement. "You did so well" is less positive reinforcement than "You worked so hard." Rewarding achievement threatens the hand of failure. Effort can be contributed without risk.
Sports are a form of systematized and controlled adversity. For a certain class of children this will be their only form of adversity.
Trophies, shelved, imply the past that looked through tint rose, nostalgia on achievement.
No one seemed to really mention the stark shadow these cast.
Things said in recollecting the past, against the trophy of achievement they do not contain, become lamentations for a past that isn't garnered any such social trophies like a real wood bookshelf.
