My Thoughts About Wrist Watches
This is something that guys think about: There are tons of complicated little gears inside your wrist
watch. We like thinking about how all those parts are doing their job, meshing together in some clever algorithm. We think of the movements of our wrist watch like we think of the motor of a Lamborghini. Most of us have no idea how to put one together; simply the fact that it's mechanical, and it's really complicated and that it's working, that is cool to us.
Last night, I went to a fast-food restaurant, got out of the car and stepped on someone's Blackberry in the parking lot. It had already been broken, run over and discarded before I put my foot on it. A Blackberry! I remember when those things were only owned by corporate executives. Now they are junk littering parking lots!
In the 1980's Douglas Adams1 wrote a science fiction novel called The Hitchhiker's Guide to The Galaxy. It was basically a novel about the Blackberry. Or the Palm Pilot. Or the internet. Take your pick. He predicted an amazing piece of technology in his book, and it saddens me that such a great invention has now become parking lot trash. We live in an era where high-tech gadgets are becoming problems at landfills. Do you still have your first computer? How about your first cell phone? My guess is that you don't.
Remember that old cliche? "They don't make 'em like they used to?"
One can appreciate the craftsmanship in a mechanical wrist watch. The old style wrist watches--the ones with springs and gears--they were meant to last. Wrist watches could be--and were meant to be--repaired. Just like your own body, it needed a checkup every few years to maintain it's health. Sure, you go to the doctor and get a flu shot. Your watch goes to the watchmaker for a shot of oil. Visiting the watch maker was kind of fun, like going to the barber. Just another part of daily-life maintainence. A good watch would last you a lifetime, or at least 40 or 50 years if you took care of it.
Modern technology disgusts me a little because it is so disposable. You can't repair a cell phone, a laptop computer, a quartz watch or a Blackberry. They become electronic junk. This gets back to human involvement in one's posessions. We interact with the maintainence of the object. We take care of it, and somehow it becomes our trusted friend. It takes care of us. You could even go so far as to say: The difference between a well-made mechanical watch and a modern piece of silicon electronics is that one has a soul, the other does not.
This is why people still drive old 1965 Mustangs. This is why chefs still carry their knife roll. This is why people still own bathtubs, light candles and learn to play the voilin. In an era of hybrid cars, Cuisinarts, shower radios and karaoke, some of the old-tech stuff is still alive and kicking.
I know nothing about the philosophical field of aesthetics, but I do know one thing: Progress isn't always progress.
An advance in technology is sometimes a step back in aesthetics. Sure, maybe that is part of getting old. My grandparents still have a phone with a dial. My neighbors still ride a horse. I sometimes enjoy sitting by a real fire in a fireplace. Now that we have cell phones and Segway scooters and under-floor radiant heating, have we really improved our quality of life? Or have we sanitized a part of our soul? Scrubbed it clean with modern technology?
The moral of the story: Go out and buy yourself a good watch. No, not one with a quartz movement. One with little gears and springs.2 When you wear it, remember that you have a soul too.
1. Douglas Adams was a great science fiction author and was friends with members of Monty Python. He wrote The Hitchhiker's Guide To the Galaxy as a comedic novel, yet he predicted several advancements in technology to come. The Guide in his novel was a kind of electronic book. Readers could get information on any subject in the known universe, and it would be beamed to their book over the sub-etha wave band. The Hitchhiker's Guide was perhaps the motivation for other inventions like the Internet-capable Palm Pilot and the Blackberry.
2. Or a tuning fork for that matter! I'm referring to the Bulova Accutron of the 1960's. Go on eBay and search for "Accutron 214" and see what comes up.