Foxhound5366
Honorary Master
It's a fine line, isn't it? One moment you're just saving for a nice camera, and the next moment you're trying to justify a new lens that costs more than a few of your bond payments.
I've been considering just how pervasive this normalisation of obsessive behaviour has become, with vastly different expressions of the same basic inner drive:
- Coffee machine and technique upgrades
- Mountain bike upgraders
- Camera equipment upgraders
- Car upgraders
- Yacht upgraders
- Cellphone upgraders
- Audiophiles
- PC gamers
- Soccer fans
- Formula One fans
You get the idea. There's a slippery slope in every single hobby or pursuit: the communities you might join might be vastly different and look down on other rival communities, but progressing further in them can entail investment of everything you have (both time and money). Sounds a bit like a drug addiction, and becomes just as damaging once you lose yourself in it.
Why this feels particularly dangerous to me is we don't have any guardrails. A barkeeper might tell you to leave after you get so blind drunk that you're disturbing the other patrons, but who is going to advise you to not spend R40 000 on an espresso machine, or R300 000 on a home audio system?
And how do you choose anyway? Wouldn't everyone want the best car, best computer, best camera and best sound system .... if only they could afford it all?
And maybe that's the ultimate guardrail then: because so few people get to explore the most expensive options in even a single hobby, never mind many ... the joy really has to be more about choosing something that gives you the most enjoyment and then making the smallest possible enhancements to extend the enjoyment you get out of that into the rest of your life.
Very zen. And yet not something we see much of in society. Not in marketing, not in public discourse.
The two questions it leaves me with is: how can one be satisfied with what you have when there's always better? And ... should you be?
These days I don't even walk into Exclusive Books because the sheer number of rabbit holes to lose myself in is overwhelming. And reading books is so 1980s (I jest ... but only a little).
The older I get, the more I find myself appreciating simplicity. Quality absolutely too, but not at the cost of stress or even financial pressure.
I take my hat off to you if you've got hobbies you're obsessive about and can pour yourself into, but just look after yourself and your loved ones first ok? People before things, always.
Always.
I've been considering just how pervasive this normalisation of obsessive behaviour has become, with vastly different expressions of the same basic inner drive:
- Coffee machine and technique upgrades
- Mountain bike upgraders
- Camera equipment upgraders
- Car upgraders
- Yacht upgraders
- Cellphone upgraders
- Audiophiles
- PC gamers
- Soccer fans
- Formula One fans
You get the idea. There's a slippery slope in every single hobby or pursuit: the communities you might join might be vastly different and look down on other rival communities, but progressing further in them can entail investment of everything you have (both time and money). Sounds a bit like a drug addiction, and becomes just as damaging once you lose yourself in it.
Why this feels particularly dangerous to me is we don't have any guardrails. A barkeeper might tell you to leave after you get so blind drunk that you're disturbing the other patrons, but who is going to advise you to not spend R40 000 on an espresso machine, or R300 000 on a home audio system?
And how do you choose anyway? Wouldn't everyone want the best car, best computer, best camera and best sound system .... if only they could afford it all?
And maybe that's the ultimate guardrail then: because so few people get to explore the most expensive options in even a single hobby, never mind many ... the joy really has to be more about choosing something that gives you the most enjoyment and then making the smallest possible enhancements to extend the enjoyment you get out of that into the rest of your life.
Very zen. And yet not something we see much of in society. Not in marketing, not in public discourse.
The two questions it leaves me with is: how can one be satisfied with what you have when there's always better? And ... should you be?
These days I don't even walk into Exclusive Books because the sheer number of rabbit holes to lose myself in is overwhelming. And reading books is so 1980s (I jest ... but only a little).
The older I get, the more I find myself appreciating simplicity. Quality absolutely too, but not at the cost of stress or even financial pressure.
I take my hat off to you if you've got hobbies you're obsessive about and can pour yourself into, but just look after yourself and your loved ones first ok? People before things, always.
Always.
