We were forced out of the house today, as we needed to get some autumn clothes for Smallsteps, since she has grown quite a bit. Normally, we would look for second hand outdoor wear as it is so expensive, but Corona has meant there isn't much on offer in the flea markets. We got some sale prices at least though.
Close to the shopping center there is a luxury car dealer and there was a Ferrari sitting outside. I said, wouldn't it be nice to be able to afford a Ferrari and my wife replied, "what would you want a Ferrari for?"
I didn't say I wanted a Ferrari, I said I want to be able to afford a Ferrari. Being able to afford means having a great deal more than the purchase price, as well as maintenance costs and the like. I am far too practical to have a Ferrari or at least, would need an obscene amount of wealth to justify it - even then I don't think I would, I would do something more useful with the money.
At the shopping center there was a car show of old cars (the image above is of a Chevy Impala) and while some were pretty impressive, I have never really had the urge to own an old car. I do get the attraction of restoring one however.
I guess that humans as a species have always been attracted to shiny things that aren't necessarily valuable. Even gold didn't really have any practical usage and was coveted for its shininess and used to make jewelry and decorations. It was likely considered for a symbol of status because it not only required work to get, it also required work to create something from it. Work is paid for, not done by those with high status. The Egyptians had access to and used a lot of gold, but I suspect that even then, it wasn't possessed by the slave classes.
I am guessing that part of the attraction of these things is the irrelevance of them, where the status comes from being able to own something that is unnecessary, to be able to sink money into a Ferrari or the skills into a car that has essentially been superseded and improved in every practical way. It is about luxury.
Luxury seems less about comfort and more about exclusivity. Social luxury is signalling the ability to consume the scarce and over-values what would be considered quite ridiculous in other context - like people hunting endangered animals before they are all gone so they can mount it on their wall.
Perhaps our obsession with the shiny is because we love to see ourselves in the mirror, but what is reflected back might not really be what we want to see. Of course, by design we are collectors by nature as it benefited our survival, but I wonder at which point we became collectors of the irrelevant? I am guessing that while it was present in the nomadic life, the requirement to carry possessions while moving meant that there was a natural limitation on how much and what one person could collect. Once we settled down however, those limitations were removed and we were able to stack possessions in storage and expand our range to include what would have earlier been seen as a hindrance to survival.
At least for now, I don't have the resource availability for a lot of luxury and possessions that do not serve some kind of practical purpose, but that isn't necessarily always going to be the case. In the past, I was probably more interested in the irrelevant and it would be interesting to see if I was ever in a position of being able to afford a Ferrari, what I would do with it. I predict I wouldn't buy a luxury car like that, even if I could - but I can't really know until I am in that position, which means getting there first.
Acting if already there and consuming low luxury is probably a roadblock in the way of getting there. Nothing wrong with that of course, it is just a decision in life. I know people who are surrounded by luxury items, yet struggle to give time to their children. People who possess a lot of fancy things, but complain they can't go on holiday. There is an opportunity cost to all that we do and just like when we were nomadic, we still can't carry it all.
Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]