When it’s not your car, the rust on it can be beautiful.
You can spend years watching oxygen and water tirelessly eat away at the metal.
So many colors, such a wide palette of shades, such a unique and intricate pattern!
So perhaps it’s all about owning the object. If it isn’t mine, I have nothing to lose, right? All that’s left is to admire it and appreciate it.
With material objects the problem is especially clear.
The moment you pull it new out of the box, rust immediately starts eating away at it. So you have to promptly fix the damage inflicted by entropy. Hence the anxieties, cares, expenses, and the feeling of eternal dissatisfaction.
Worse still, besides the lifeless forces, there are also people trying to stain, break, or steal your object. Out of malice or naivety — it doesn’t really matter. Alas, you have no peace.
It’s different when the object is immaterial. A lived experience. A dream. A creative insight.
It, of course, also has a lifespan and fades over time, but no one can take it away from you. In terms of possession, such an object is paradoxical: it’s sort of yours, and sort of not.
And there are better objects still. Their value grows with the number of people “possessing” them.
Trust. Hope. Play. Friendship. Love.
They give the highest return on invested resources.
That’s where it makes sense to invest, what is worth growing and multiplying.
Sincerely yours,
-Alexander
As a business therapist, I help tech founders quickly solve dilemmas at the intersection of business and personality, and boost company value as a result.
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