This business of “keeping it new is an old one.”
People do not want to remove plastic from new things. This applies to the covers of new cars, remote of the new television, bodies of washing machines, new crockery, new mixies, new sofa sets, et all.
Sometimes even from people. My friend never took the plastic off from her new born baby for months. My mother-law never took it off from her husband for years, in the hope that there would be a magical transformation of making the old into new, but it did not happen…
Those who know how to maintain One -upmanship survive. It keeps the competition confused long enough to give up.
The secret lies in keeping the old new and the new old.
Let me explain it in a modern context.
How to make the old new? Perhaps this example will enlighten you.
Do you wonder why so many people who are “old enough not to do it-do it.” That is dye their hair, get flat Abs at the gym, shed 10 kilos and as a matter of principle refuse get into the senior citizens queue though there is no one in front. Of course if you are Hugh Hefner then you can get to pose with your 19 year old sex partner who is actually in reality not your sex partner. This comes under the classification of one upmanship oops… one up- womanship too.
Our societies have a youth oriented culture. We sell age defying creams and all our advertisements are about going back into the past- like looking younger, more energetic than our years, successful fourth marriages, second careers and bonding with our grand-kid without getting breathless.
To get the perspective we have to examine how to make the new old too… And how that matters.
Take crockery as an example.
My mother in law who is an absolute expert on what good investment is, says “ Its crockery.”
(She is correct says the International Monetary Fund. And they have the second last laugh on anyone who says “but I thought it is Gold?”)
Even the pharaohs knew that crockery was the best investment. They took with them a lot of crockery and saved it in their tombs. Today it has become priceless.
Gold gets stolen easily and goes into the family of its robbers, but crockery remains…
My mother-law the expert on the preservation of everything and a specialist on crockery, may even graduate to becoming a superior mummified Mummy. She even has secret investors lined up for the construction of her pyramid.
The problem we face is a decision on what matters most. Is it the antique or the new?
Well being a superior generation we have no problems with that. Both are required- the new serves the purpose of making us superior to the neighbors’ and in laws, and when the new becomes old we can pass it down to our kith and kin as antique heirlooms.
Let us digress and examine a new perspective on how all this is affecting us. And what all this is resulting in.
Psychologists called it the Collyer’s Syndrome. Hoarding was once a word associated with a hobby- like a coin or stamp collection, or Pokémon cards. Now everyone seems to be doing it.
Defining what is junk is becoming extremely difficult. We are told that every thing can have a use or can be recycled, given to someone, used for school projects, used for home decoration, used for creative writing, consumed, eaten, given to the underprivileged, left in your will as for your descendents or for the future archeologists of this planet.… the list goes on…
That is why no hoarder can be called a person with Collyers syndrome- Even if you have no space to stand in their house.
The issue of being planet friendly is too complex for most of us. The next generation will be more educated on this In the future all schools have dustbins with 17 slots along an educational curriculum with 11 semesters on how to use them so that we can have a direct hand in saving our planet.
For the moment let’s not worry about the planet but ourselves.
The best investment today remains the same as time immemorial- the Greeks, Harappans and the Egyptians who invested and buried their crockery; those who are now long dead would be quite rich on their antique crockery if they find a way to get alive again.
Here is my advice.
Avoid plastic crockery because of its ability to not disintegrate easily. That would lead to complications in assessing their antique value for your heirs.
You do not need to go for expensive brands like Wedgwood, Corelle, Corning or Sevres.(Even though many of them throw in a free pyramid as a bargain on their designer brands).
Just go for breakable crockery. Local brands will do too. It must have the ability to get damaged and restored by eminent restorers using latest technology to qualify as superior antique. Even if they are damaged but not restored they can adorn and add value to your descendents’ drawing rooms like headless Greek statues do.
And if all this is done with meticulous planning and precision then all of us who know how to store, preserve and mummify can look forward to …perhaps becoming an authentic mummy with a real pyramid?
Wonderful.Isn’t it?
People do not want to remove plastic from new things. This applies to the covers of new cars, remote of the new television, bodies of washing machines, new crockery, new mixies, new sofa sets, et all.
Sometimes even from people. My friend never took the plastic off from her new born baby for months. My mother-law never took it off from her husband for years, in the hope that there would be a magical transformation of making the old into new, but it did not happen…
Those who know how to maintain One -upmanship survive. It keeps the competition confused long enough to give up.
The secret lies in keeping the old new and the new old.
Let me explain it in a modern context.
How to make the old new? Perhaps this example will enlighten you.
Do you wonder why so many people who are “old enough not to do it-do it.” That is dye their hair, get flat Abs at the gym, shed 10 kilos and as a matter of principle refuse get into the senior citizens queue though there is no one in front. Of course if you are Hugh Hefner then you can get to pose with your 19 year old sex partner who is actually in reality not your sex partner. This comes under the classification of one upmanship oops… one up- womanship too.
Our societies have a youth oriented culture. We sell age defying creams and all our advertisements are about going back into the past- like looking younger, more energetic than our years, successful fourth marriages, second careers and bonding with our grand-kid without getting breathless.
To get the perspective we have to examine how to make the new old too… And how that matters.
Take crockery as an example.
My mother in law who is an absolute expert on what good investment is, says “ Its crockery.”
(She is correct says the International Monetary Fund. And they have the second last laugh on anyone who says “but I thought it is Gold?”)
Even the pharaohs knew that crockery was the best investment. They took with them a lot of crockery and saved it in their tombs. Today it has become priceless.
Gold gets stolen easily and goes into the family of its robbers, but crockery remains…
My mother-law the expert on the preservation of everything and a specialist on crockery, may even graduate to becoming a superior mummified Mummy. She even has secret investors lined up for the construction of her pyramid.
The problem we face is a decision on what matters most. Is it the antique or the new?
Well being a superior generation we have no problems with that. Both are required- the new serves the purpose of making us superior to the neighbors’ and in laws, and when the new becomes old we can pass it down to our kith and kin as antique heirlooms.
Let us digress and examine a new perspective on how all this is affecting us. And what all this is resulting in.
Psychologists called it the Collyer’s Syndrome. Hoarding was once a word associated with a hobby- like a coin or stamp collection, or Pokémon cards. Now everyone seems to be doing it.
Defining what is junk is becoming extremely difficult. We are told that every thing can have a use or can be recycled, given to someone, used for school projects, used for home decoration, used for creative writing, consumed, eaten, given to the underprivileged, left in your will as for your descendents or for the future archeologists of this planet.… the list goes on…
That is why no hoarder can be called a person with Collyers syndrome- Even if you have no space to stand in their house.
The issue of being planet friendly is too complex for most of us. The next generation will be more educated on this In the future all schools have dustbins with 17 slots along an educational curriculum with 11 semesters on how to use them so that we can have a direct hand in saving our planet.
For the moment let’s not worry about the planet but ourselves.
The best investment today remains the same as time immemorial- the Greeks, Harappans and the Egyptians who invested and buried their crockery; those who are now long dead would be quite rich on their antique crockery if they find a way to get alive again.
Here is my advice.
Avoid plastic crockery because of its ability to not disintegrate easily. That would lead to complications in assessing their antique value for your heirs.
You do not need to go for expensive brands like Wedgwood, Corelle, Corning or Sevres.(Even though many of them throw in a free pyramid as a bargain on their designer brands).
Just go for breakable crockery. Local brands will do too. It must have the ability to get damaged and restored by eminent restorers using latest technology to qualify as superior antique. Even if they are damaged but not restored they can adorn and add value to your descendents’ drawing rooms like headless Greek statues do.
And if all this is done with meticulous planning and precision then all of us who know how to store, preserve and mummify can look forward to …perhaps becoming an authentic mummy with a real pyramid?
Wonderful.Isn’t it?
Copyright © 2014, Lima Sehgal
Republication or dissemination of the contents of this article are
expressly prohibited without the written consent of the publishers of Jobnet
magazine & the Author
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