Reading the tech sites, I was enduring my annual surprise that people are willing to spend $650 on a phone every year. I commented about it on Facebook, and a friend of mine, who is probably right about this sort of the thing a lot of the time, suggested that I was "developing an almost robot-like pragmatic view on life." I chuckled, because it isn't far from the truth... sometimes.
Sometimes, I say, because given the stupid car that I have and my obsession with cruises, I'm obviously not pragmatic with everything. Come to think of it, the same friend helped me rationalize the car by suggesting it enabled memorable experiences, and therefore does not contradict my "experiences not stuff" m.o. I'm also free wheeling with cash when it comes to charitable giving, buying a friend lunch, tipping high and generally disregarding the cost of any leisure travel. No roboticness there!
But for whatever reason, yeah, there are certain categories of things where I enforce a realistic and largely data-driven view of the world. The phone thing, that's just a perception that it's wasteful, that the annual expense doesn't make life $650 better. That's weird of me to say, because God knows I've been known to have a gadget problem. But if I wasn't driving electric vehicles for science, I'd be content to drive a sensible Prius. I don't need a bigger house, either, even if I could afford it. Ikea furniture is perfectly functional to me. Working remotely is efficient.
I wasn't always this way. I'm pretty sure it's because I messed around a lot in my 20's and made poor decisions, and now I'm trying to overcompensate for that. In my head at least, I've acquired enough data and seen enough to make what I see as logical decisions. I suppose I need to remember that such pragmatism is what put me back in Cleveland, and we all know that was a terrible idea.
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