I know—perspective wasn’t invented in my lifetime, so stop looking at me in that tone of voice. I hurry every chance I get. That’s not a flaw. That’s mileage.
I’ve lived long enough to watch things arrive with fanfare and leave without apology. Things I was sure would never disappear. Kodak? Really? A name so stitched into everyday life that you didn’t even think of it as a company—just a given. I can still see those photo envelopes—your last name misspelled, a date stamped crooked—moments you didn’t realize mattered until you held them. There was a ritual to it. Finish the roll. Guard it like fragile truth. Wait. And waiting used to be part of the value. And then it was gone. Not erased, just… finished. We still have the photographs. We still have the memories. The machine mattered less than we thought.
I’ve watched televisions evolve from furniture to accessories. Big-screen TVs used to take up an entire wall, and it took several people to move one. Meanwhile, our lives were being packed into cardboard boxes labeled Kitchen, Kid’s Room, Bath, and my personal favorite: Misc. Everything important eventually winds up in Misc.
Then my wife discovered totes, and the shit went downhill from there. Same labels, same contents—but now they were slapped onto plastic bins stacked in the corner of a garage you worked your ass off to finally afford. Progress, they called it. Durable. Stackable. Eternal.
Nothing was lost. Everything was contained. And somehow, that felt worse.
Even though it felt worse, it wasn’t bad enough to stop. I traded in my Sharpie for fancy labels I make with my printers. Oh yeah—I can afford the better totes now. The stackable kind. Now the stuff has filled the garage and spilled into a storage unit. I may need therapy or a dumpster. Probably both.
The kids grew up in the meantime. They got their own spaces. Doors started slamming. Obscenities were shouted with an enthusiasm that suggested my daughters had taken sibling disagreements to a whole new level. Apparently, their dad and uncles were soft. Weak. Should probably take lessons.
That’s how it goes. The world keeps upgrading while quietly discarding what once felt permanent.
But does the world really keep upgrading? Or is that just something we tell ourselves so we don’t have to face the harder truths—the ones without instruction manuals or return policies?
Some things didn’t evolve. They were replaced. And not in a good way. They became disposable. Not broken. Not obsolete. Just cheaper to throw away than to understand or repair.
There was a time when the word quality meant something. You can still find it if you know where to look—pressed into the spine of an old hardcover, stitching still tight after decades, pages yellowed but intact. Sitting quietly next to words like honor and integrity. Words we still recognize, but no longer expect to encounter in the wild. We didn’t lose those things all at once. We just stopped insisting on them.
Not long ago, my boss asked us what we were doing over the weekend. It had been a rough week—tough, scary, downright mean. People talked about blowing off steam. Drinking. Traveling. Zoning out. Most of the things they mentioned, I’d already done at some point in my life.
When it got to me, I said I was going to build a new bookshelf for a collection I was putting together.
The entire department gave me hell.
“Why don’t you just buy one?”
“They’re cheaper.”
All the usual commentary that comes with efficiency and convenience and not wanting to think too hard about where things come from.
I didn’t argue. I just went home.
They were right—though not for the reasons they thought. Hardwood makes better bookshelves. Hardwood is expensive. I was using pine.
I sealed it with polyurethane. Nothing fancy. But there’s something about working through the miscuts. Measuring twice and still getting it wrong. Sanding it down and watching it slowly become what you intended. Something about ending the day with sawdust on your hands and a finished thing standing where nothing stood before.
You don’t build like that because it’s cheaper.
You build like that because it still asks something of you.
Now you have a collection you took the time to research and gather, sitting on a shelf you designed and built yourself. It may not be worth much money. It won’t impress an appraiser. But it might be one of the most valuable things in your life.
Time is worth more than any dollar amount we attach to it. We just forget that when we’re doing the math.
When I came back to work, the running joke was still my “project.” I showed them a picture of the simple shelf I’d built. They countered by pulling up sleek, expensive bookshelves online. Lots of clean lines. Lots of gloss. Very impressive.
So I asked them to look up handmade pine bookshelves.
I sipped my coffee while the chiding went quiet. A few of them looked at me, shrugged, and walked back to their desks. It wasn’t about winning. It was just the first time all week the math didn’t get the last word.
Through all of this, there has been one constant thread that helped me get through it all: music.
Nothing else needs to be said.
When I went home, I pulled a book off my shelf and propped my feet up, reading the first page. My cat, Sophie, meowed and curled up beside me. And now, I often find Guppy asleep on the top shelf.
The house settled into its usual sounds.
I’ve lived through enough so-called world-changing inventions to recognize the seduction of that phrase. Computers shrank from room-sized beasts to things we misplace. Phones became smarter than we ever bothered to be—and made us dumber in some areas. The internet promised connection and delivered noise at scale. All impressive. All useful. None of them changed me the way time did.
Every invention I’ve lived through tried to make life faster, easier, louder. Perspective does the opposite.
The shelf still holds. The house is quiet. That feels like enough.
Memoirs of Madness 