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Renting Everything I Own
Have you read the story of stuff? If not, you owe it to yourself to pop on over, take 20 mins, and have a listen. Go ahead, I'll wait here.
That is one of the most thought provoking things I've heard in a while, and it coalesces a few things that have been bothering me lately.
For one, my earphones: I find the ear-buds too uncomfortable, and I'm too cheap to pay big money for earphones, when there are perfectly good earphones for about $14.
However, they don't last. Typically, the jack wears out, or rather the cord's connection to the jack. The more complex components, from the speakers to the headband, all work fine -- but if the jack is shot, then the whole unit goes in the trash.
So I buy a fresh pair every couple of months. This leads to the realization that I'm renting my earphones!
If everything mass produced in the last 50 years is designed to burn out before I'm done with it, then, I'll need to buy it again. So all my stuff....hmmm. That leads to the realization that, in fact, I'm renting everything I own. Earphones are just the worst examples.
Now there's an unpleasant epiphany for you.
1 comment
Do we really own anything anyway though?Does any of this really belong to us?
Aren't we just a blip, really ... just using the stuff until some reincarnated version of ourselves comes along to use some reincarnated form of the stuff in some other time?
In the words of Anne Lamott ...
â??A hundred years from now? All new people.â?
(Still ... we do need to preserve and conserve ... and build some things in a way that doesn't exploit anyone or the planet, and that will last a while instead of deteriorating too quickly ... so those reincarnations of the soul stuff we emerged out of ... actually have some stuff too ... and a viable ecosystem).
Hmmmm .... NOW ... that was wordy!
- I
PS There is one eternal thing you do absolutely own ... my little heart. :-)
(It's just my body that you're renting).