I tend to be a person that keeps a lot of things: I still have my 4-H books on raising chickens stored away somewhere and still have some of the books from my childhood. A lot has gone over the years but a lot has stayed here. But quiz me on the cost of most of these things and I will have little idea what I paid for most of them.
I became more conscious of this as years went by. In some cases it is the keeping of a receipt that goes with object (they make great book marks, for example): looking back and realizing not only how much something was (inevitably less than it is now) can be both a humbling and frustrating experience. In some cases it is because the cost of the item is more memorable: A 20 figure set of Gamma World figures was about $112 six years ago and has doubled in price and the price of finishing out my sword exists in my brain.
But the connection I failed to make was that of the actual cost - until Produce (A)Isle, when the cost of things against my wage became very clear indeed. Knowing what I know now, the thing I failed to fully account for is the cost of life that involves.
Money in our modern world is time and time in this world is life - our lives. That $6.00 cup of Frappacappacoffee? Depending on your salary, that represents one half of a work hour to thirty seconds of a work hour. That book? A new one will easily be over an hour for a minimum wage employee, and ever for higher paid folks it can be not an insignificant amount.
The correct question is was it worth it?
Value remains in the eye of the beholder: to a collector a high price can represent the pinnacle of a collection while to the common person it seems far too much. And the pleasure of owning a thing may outweigh the apparent cost of it.
But it does leave a question: Is it truly worth the life that it cost use? Or - given that we will leave all at some point, like it or not - was it a foolish investment in a passing thing that, while it cost a great deal of money, was not worth the cost of our life?
For far too many this type of thinking is beyond the ken, people want what they want when they want it.....cost?....eh!! Look at the average American, cup of coffee clutched in one hand while the other hand holds that cell phone (how much was that?) as he/she walks about. For many introspection is a four-letter word TB.
ReplyDeleteI castigate myself in this as well, Nylon12: occasionally I fall to the lure of the Frappacappacoffee.
DeleteI had not thought of introspection as a four letter word in modern culture, but you are quite right to note it.
On the last day of the move, I ran up against this hard. And I have it in my mind most days. Good stuff to remember.
ReplyDeleteSTxAR, it is constantly on my mind now as well. I cannot change what I have done, but I can make better choices going forward.
DeleteSTxAR, I need to be reminded of this more. In my case it was not just the move but packing my parents' place up as well. And even in our new location I need to think on this more as this is now all stuff that will likely need to move again. Is this stuff I really need? Really?
DeleteThat is a great quote from Heinlein Michael! Thank you for sharing!
ReplyDeleteI grew up in a frugal family so live my life frugally too by habit. It always amazes me as what most of my peers spend without considering the true costs of things. They drive vehicles that cost three and four times the amount of my vehicle, they live in houses triple the size and cost of mine, but with the same number of bedrooms, they regularly go on vacations costing upwards of $10 to $15k, etc. When I add all that up, it equals nearly decades of expenses for our household, nearly an unfathomable amount of time that they will have to work to pay for all those things.
ReplyDeleteEd, living in heavily urban areas as I have for almost 35 years now, it is shocking what people will spend on things. Part of it is living in an urban environment, where things simply seem to cost more. But there is also an element of almost wild abandon in spending.
DeleteGiven our current economic conditions, likely thrift is to become the new "new car".
"Money in our modern world is time." That's it exactly. But I think it's easy to overlook this when money flows easily. When people try to point out how "expensive" it is to keep chickens or goats, I respond by saying it's a matter of how I spend my time. I can either pay for them with my own labor and time, or I can pay for them by going to work and earning the money to pay for them. The question then becomes, which would I rather be doing? Enjoying working with my animals or at a job I probably hate? For me, it's a no brainer.
ReplyDeleteLeigh, I suspect that we in our modern industrial society have been trained by almost 200 years of measuring things only in money - because that is how we are able to do things and buy things. To measure it in time is a very pre-Industrial Revolution concept.
DeleteOne time when we were at the Living History exhibit at Colonial Williamsburg, I asked a gunsmith how much the pistol that he was working on cost. He had no "cost", just the amount of hours he had put into it.
One wonders if we have not trained ourselves to deaden the question of "Is this a good investment of my time?"