Blast From the Past
Today I had a realization, and this one was unrelated to my previous post about Seann William Scott. I decided that I never want to be in a position where I have so-called "disposable income". That's not to say that I don't want to purchase "luxury items", or have nice things, and things that I just plain want to have. Rather, I don't want to have money that's not working for me, and I don't want to get sucked into the phenomenon of conspicuous consumption. Here's a bit of an illustration.
Recently, work was finished on a brand new cabin that my parents had built near the coast. My folks want to make the place look some what old, so they've been hitting garage sales and such. My dad has found two old radios recently, one that was purchased new in 1941 just prior to American entry into World War II, and another from 1952. The one from '41 is still being restored, and should look absolutely sweet when it's done.
This morning when I arrived at work, before I got down to business, dad had me help him carry the '52 radio upstairs to his office. We plugged it in, and after about thirty seconds it warmed up and came to life. Whoever had done the work on it (which probably wasn't much, I think it was essentially working beforehand) had tuned it in to the public radio station in College City, and it was an eerie feeling to turn that old radio on and hear some program about pre-World War II Japan. Being a historian myself, it invoked a great sense of nostalgia to hear that antique radio come to life.
Good to go, y'know? He found the thing at a garage sale, and brought it back to life. There are some yuppies who would pay a few hundred dollars for a brand new "conversation piece" radio that looked like that, but had no history, no soul.
After that, we wound up at a garage sale, and I paid $20 for an old chest that could, according to my dad, go for at least a $100 in an antique store. Now I'll have something to store things in and to use as a table whenever I move out, hopefully sooner rather than later.
Then, as dad and I were on our way back home, he mentioned that when he'd picked the radio up from the shop the previous day, he'd seen the personal juke box of one of the guys who works at the shop, and had strongly considered buying it. He declined, even though the price was right ($700, fully loaded with records), because he really doesn't have anywhere to put it, but I could tell that he was second guessing his decision. And I thought to myself, "Honestly, who needs a jukebox? If that's not having something just to have something, I don't know what is."
So, the bottom line (after a bit of rambling) is that I want to have nice things, and I want to be successful and make money, but I don't want to give mad props to Mammon, when the true wealth comes from hard work, and accomplishments. Wealth is a means to an end, not an end in and of itself... Sort of like science, come to think of it.
No juke boxes for me. Old radios, maybe.
Recently, work was finished on a brand new cabin that my parents had built near the coast. My folks want to make the place look some what old, so they've been hitting garage sales and such. My dad has found two old radios recently, one that was purchased new in 1941 just prior to American entry into World War II, and another from 1952. The one from '41 is still being restored, and should look absolutely sweet when it's done.
This morning when I arrived at work, before I got down to business, dad had me help him carry the '52 radio upstairs to his office. We plugged it in, and after about thirty seconds it warmed up and came to life. Whoever had done the work on it (which probably wasn't much, I think it was essentially working beforehand) had tuned it in to the public radio station in College City, and it was an eerie feeling to turn that old radio on and hear some program about pre-World War II Japan. Being a historian myself, it invoked a great sense of nostalgia to hear that antique radio come to life.
Good to go, y'know? He found the thing at a garage sale, and brought it back to life. There are some yuppies who would pay a few hundred dollars for a brand new "conversation piece" radio that looked like that, but had no history, no soul.
After that, we wound up at a garage sale, and I paid $20 for an old chest that could, according to my dad, go for at least a $100 in an antique store. Now I'll have something to store things in and to use as a table whenever I move out, hopefully sooner rather than later.
Then, as dad and I were on our way back home, he mentioned that when he'd picked the radio up from the shop the previous day, he'd seen the personal juke box of one of the guys who works at the shop, and had strongly considered buying it. He declined, even though the price was right ($700, fully loaded with records), because he really doesn't have anywhere to put it, but I could tell that he was second guessing his decision. And I thought to myself, "Honestly, who needs a jukebox? If that's not having something just to have something, I don't know what is."
So, the bottom line (after a bit of rambling) is that I want to have nice things, and I want to be successful and make money, but I don't want to give mad props to Mammon, when the true wealth comes from hard work, and accomplishments. Wealth is a means to an end, not an end in and of itself... Sort of like science, come to think of it.
No juke boxes for me. Old radios, maybe.
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