This reads like a prose poem - I think you’ll enjoy it. If there is a subconscious reason that we chose vintage timepieces as something to collect, I think the answer is in this wonderful short piece from last Sunday’s NY Times Magazine https://nyti.ms/3dmfBEh
I am amazed that people are unable to tell the time on an analogue clock or watch! There will be no market for my watch collection in 20-30 years!
What I find with tech gadgets is that I never generate a real relationship with them. They are purely tools, ready to be replaced at any time when they’ve outlived their usefulness, or have been supplanted by a new model. But then I think of things like my watch, pocket knife, derailleur bicycle: I am more engaged with them, want to fix them, sometimes upgrade them...a relationship forms, and you develop a feeling of attachment. This is why I have confidence that vintage watches will always be appreciated: because tech can never fill that void. And those that don’t buy in, it isn’t because they tried it, and disagree...it’s because they’ve yet to try it.
My experience has been a little different, but I am still too young to make a claim, but I will try anyways. I disagree that reading the time off a digital clock is entirely less thought provoking than an analog. The precise nature of digital is beautiful in itself, as are computers; it is a different level of magic. There is a stillness in digital clocks, or any depiction of time really; it just depends on what mind state the viewer is in. Love for computers is far more abstract as it is hard to build a connection with the material object, but the concept of a 'computer' is something I am forever attached to and it has remained unchanged since the first time I got to use one. I was born in 95' right around when tech was proliferating. In preschool I made my first email on our first computer (yep I was spoiled). I remember navigating Windows 95 with an absolute sense of awe and joy. We still have that computer tucked away in the basement and I do have a certain attachment to the plastic monitor and keyboard (although all the next generation computers were happily tossed). I loved wristwatches at that time too, I wore a digital Casio calculator watch and would never take it off my wrist-- until I lost it. I had forgotten watches existed, which was easy as my entire family was aloof to wristwatches as well, right up until university. My concept of time had changed; walking around campus was already daunting enough, now I had to clamour for my phone to see what time it was and try to make it to my next class (and not get lost). Exams, 'no phones allowed' lectures, they were begging for a wristwatch. So I bought a cheap analog quartz, and that was that! Infinitely more useful, the power of time on the wrist is heavily underrated in my cohort. I have since convinced a lot of my friends to at least try wearing a watch. "Get a GSHOCK, something cheap". And a few months later they are already asking me questions about Omega, Rolex... Analog is great, and for now it is definitely my choice for wrist wear as it is far more satisfying to watch time on an actual gauge. But digital still has its place, even that little clock in the corner of my Windows desktop which I have been using my whole life!
Why did you use Win95, by the time you could do anything with the computers they have Win 98 released and probably Win 2000 .
Haha I did use those too. But I started out with Windows 95 around 1999. My dad probably didn't upgrade his computer right away.
The mechanical measure of time goes back a long way and persists to this day. Mechanical measurement of time and space combined with unbelievable craftsmanship ticks two important boxes for most of us. Some of these pieces are really nearing the edge of what humans can create to this point!
It's too bad the new generation does not have the same upbringing as the ones before the net. Most are too lazy now or take for granted the ability to use the mind instead of just relying on Dr Google. Now it's I want it Now! Because of the easy access to all the answers . There is a paradox though as being satisfied with answers given at the tip of your fingertips does not equate to the satisfaction of ones ability to find it using research and long hours of study. That is what defines a persons self growth mentally.
What a bullshit comment. Are you shitting on your children or the entire generation, generally speaking?
I collect because it’s a weird bowerbird instinct I have. Knives, Watches, Fishing lures can’t get enough of them, use them as intended. And every one of them is a grail, everything I buy is a grail, I only buy grails Just work hard and buy what you want. 9/10 grails aren’t your grail they are some wankers on a YouTube channel that stole it from a Instagram guy that read it in a magazine that the writers were paid buy the brand marketing department to call it a grail. Now get out there and find your own grail, and stop trying to buy the YouTube guys grail.
This line made me chuckle: “I understood the world I knew was gone forever when I had to teach a college student how to operate an envelope.”
