Tuesday, September 04, 2007
Rent
You see those little tabby things at the top of the page? You may remember in my last make-over phase that I tried to maintain a bunch of different blogs and expected my loyal readers to check out each one diligently. Well, never really worked and I've long since given up trying to keep them updated.
Under my old "Attempts at Profundity" site, my first entry was the cryptic axiom "Key=Chain". Nobody really got it at the time, but what I was getting at was my recurrent notion that ownership is often a form of self-imposed slavery. I thought about this a great deal over the course of this summer as I gazed longingly at various leisure items.
I put it this way to a friend who was thinking about building a cabin:
"Before you decide to own a cabin, make sure you are prepared for the cabin to own you."
...because that's what happens. You buy a cabin and bam! there go your holidays and most of your summer weekends for the rest of your life. Thinking about taking a trip somewhere else this year? Well, you can't because then you've wasted your money on your cabin and you'll probably suffer a break-in or other damage from inadequate maintenance.
RV? Same deal. Buy one and you'll spend every summer on the road hunting for places to unload your sewage.
Boats? Again, buy one and you'll feel obligated to go boating every summer weekend whether you feel like it or not. Hauling. Launching. Docking. Repairing. Fees, fees, fees every time you turn around.
After my son's birthday, I've even come to this conclusion about convertibles. They are cool the first three times you drive them. After that, you get used to them and the annoyance factors start to become more noticeable.
There are some things worth owning, like your house or your car. Stuff you are going to use all the time or stuff that represents an investment.
But leisure items? Nope, I think I'll probably just stick to renting them, thank you very much.
posted by Mentok @ 9:52 a.m.,
