Bitter experience has fostered in me a wary suspicion of nice things.
Of course the nice things I have in mind at the moment are very specific. I'm not speaking of well-made things and things that are produced with love and care, the love of which and the desire of which to produce could be considered virtues.
Virtues in that certain high standards of quality and care encourage a consciousness of love and care and vice versa, which bring into focus the living energy of the materials one works with, the individuals that get to enjoy those materials, the pride and belonging of good work, and the communities enriched by that enjoyment and that pride and belonging.
It is nice to have some nice things. But there is a tipping point in which the thing becomes the subject, and the end for one's efforts.
The more time and energy and investment put into a thing, the more weight it begins to hold as something of importance, which grows and can eventually eclipse the people surrounding it. And it is also the case that a poverty of healthy people relations can lead to an inordinate preoccupation with nice materials and things and how important it is to have those things.
We put human beings in cages and kill them over the taking back and forth of nice things.
And nice infrastructure can become quite oppressive, with its owners constantly hovering over it anxiously, disrespecting and degrading those who might sully it in some way. Say the anxious homeowner agonizes over the white carpet and torments guests and occupants alike for dirtying it.
Or the anxious homeowner agonizes over the drooping property values and chases out undesirable urban elements and individuals say. Or the anxious car owner rages over a small cosmetic dent. Or the anxious restaurant goer humiliates the server for serving a meal that fails to meet expectations. And so on. The examples are depressingly endless.
And so the things maintain their value or the value is augmented even, and people steadily contract and crumple and degrade around the things in perfect stasis.
