We all need to keep circulating them in order to keep the system alive and well.
Since I always check if users participate in regular merit distribution before meriting their post, I have considered posting a reminder to those users if their merit-worthy post is in a thread that am replying in. Something along the lines of "
merits are not meant to be hoarded but distributed to those who deserve them. If receiving merits makes you happy, then make other forum users happy as well. I don't reward merit-hoarders."