It is always a little bit of a fencing match, I suppose: the question of who is going to name the first idea (and thereby set the price range) is always present. There is also the realization that practically speaking, the acknowledgement that for most of the small things we desire, we can just buy them outright (not always the case, of course).
So I thought and I thought. Finally I said "Most of the things I want are connected to Iai so I doubt we can get any of those."
This struck me as a very odd development.
Over the course of the years (and if you have read long enough, you have been through at least some of them) I have had any number of interests and activities. I still have many of them of course, but over time most of them have slowly continued to fade into the background - it is mostly a time and space continuum thing: not as much time available, so I have slowly started to focus on a few activities to the exclusion of others. The big winners from this paring down are Iai and weight training (writing, reading, and cheese now hold runner up designations).
It is funny how one thing tends to take over our life we when were not looking for it - and this is certainly not something I would have predicted 10 years ago. My interests then were much more focused on gardening (when I had a good one I could grow) and bees and mead making. Things changed, of course, and we ended up here. And I ended up with a new interest.
What does wanting "Iai" things looking like? Getting a new scabbard made. Getting a sword fitted out. Getting a higher grade of training gear. And always, going to Japan to train.
Sadly, none of this fits easily into a stocking or is something that one can just procure at the local brick and mortar store. And that is okay - budgeting for it and waiting are part of the fun. But is a remarkable thing that most of the less valuable things have been sluiced away by the years, starting (in small measure) to leave the nuggets visible.
That's so true about interests, and not necessarily bad that they change with circumstances. I don't regret purchases I've made that were carefully planned for and useful for being productive. It's the impulse buys that always end up as having been a waste. Or so it seems. All that aside, a trip to Japan to train would be lovely.
ReplyDeleteThat is a really good point about the impulse buys, Leigh. If I think about it, those are the ones that are almost always wasted or the ones that I look back on and think "why did I get that in the first place"?
ReplyDeleteTraining in Japan was very delightful (very challenging as well, no vacation that). Looking forward to it this coming year as well.