THE READER RANT: Life is about experience. Don’t deny your watch its own adventures
Time+TideEDITOR’S NOTE: “Be brave. Take risks. Nothing can substitute experience.” It’s hard to argue with those words from the author Paulo Coelho . Experience is the best teacher (albeit a brutal one, too). It is the creator of memories, the catalyst of understanding and the source of worldly wisdom to boot. Suffice to say, a life devoid of experience would be sanitised and deathly dull. But how does the notion of “experience” apply to our interaction with our watches? Time+Tide reader Tom Langland wrote to us sharing his thoughts on the subject. If you have a Reader Rant, we’d love to hear from you, too. Email us at [email protected]
What does it say about someone or something that has never had an experience? Is that person or object new or simply inexperienced? Are they a novice or a first timer? If it’s an object you would say it is brand new or “never worn”. But does that pristine object hold the same intrinsic value as an identical version that has lived the adventures for which it was actually built?
Let’s look at a brand new tractor that was made in 1945. Let’s say this tractor has just been found on a farm, brand new and never used with glossy, sparkling paint. Put next to it, the same model tractor that’s the same age but which was well used for 15 years, before being put away and sparingly used over the following decades until now. Let’s also say that this second tractor has been serviced and well maintained. Which tractor is more genuine? Which tractor is MORE of the object that it was originally built and designed to be?
I would wholeheartedly say the used tractor. I would also go so far to say that the used tractor has character, has stories and experiences that rest within the object. I might even say that this tractor has “soul” and dare I say a personality. Could it be a genuine tractor? When I think of a tractor there is nothing sparkly and new about it.
If I love tractors and that is my passion, I would also say the used tractor is the one that would make my heart skip a beat and would be the one I would rather possess than the brand new one. That’s not to say the brand new one, isn’t absolutely incredible and a pleasure to admire and look at. But… I have with problem with this tractor. What would I do with it if I owned it? Use it and put marks and scratches on it and risk potentially destroying the last of its kind in the world – after all they are not making these anymore. As nice as it would be to run around in a brand new tractor, keeping this tractor pristine and mint is probably the smarter thing to do and hence, I would not want to own it. I couldn’t experience it and if I can’t experience it, then what actually is this tractor?
It’s not a tool and it’s never been used, it doesn’t have any stories or experiences, no life marks and scuffs, no personality apart from the catchy one-liner used in the advertising brochure. Does it therefore have no soul? If it has no soul, why would I be interested in it? And why in hell would I be interested in it if there are hundreds or even thousands of brand new “1945 tractors” available?
We love watches for the stories they tell, the time they spend with us, the wrists to which they are attached and their ability to hold feeling and heart. Within their tiny cases they do genuinely hold a heart, too: a mechanically beating heart whose creation was founded to tell humans the time. These were never intended to hold our passions, crammed into the spaces between fly wheels, bridges and balance springs. But if you are reading this, you definitely know they do.
To anyone who admires and adores their watches, please love them and wear them and give them life. These are the watches worth talking about. These are the watches that put a twinkle in our eye. To those watches who sit in vaults, locked boxes and safes, only to see the light of day for bragging rights or to be exchanged for incredible sums of money, I call you out for the imposters and posers that you are. Trapped behind solid steel and languishing in the dark, you do not interest me, nor do I desire you. And to the owners of said undesirables, stop the scheming and profiteering of these objects. Get them out, give them life and allow them to be the tiny little holders of stories and passion as we know they can truly be.
If you have a Reader Rant email us at [email protected]