Experience

I recently have been able to purchase a few pieces of music related technology I have fancied for a long time. They are marvels, but I won't bore you with the details. I've been a technology buff for most of my life. I get excited about devices. I have always gotten along well with machines; much better than with people much of the time I'm afraid. But the devices themselves are really not what is so great, it's what they allow you to do. And in the doing, you gain experiences. That's where the value is. The thing itself is worthless if it doesn't provide the experience you seek. Just owning something is a thrill that wears out very quickly. We all have known people who owned piles of things, but owned precious few experiences. But if you love the experience, you often have to own the thing to make it go on. You can sometimes borrow an experience like borrowing a motorcycle. But it's not the same as riding 60,000 miles on your own.

Of course there are lots and lots of experiences that don't require the purchase of anything. But they require one to value the experience. Like sitting by a fire. Or watching a sunset. Or having a talk about something that stirs in your soul with someone you care about. The experiences make memories and at the end of the day that's all we have left.

Experience is often not valued or even recognized as it is happening. So many things we remember from our childhood are so precious, but at the time they didn't seem special at all. We raced through them, sometimes despising them, looking forward to the next thing, the thing we thought would be exciting, which the present was not. But what a wonderful thing when we recognize in the moment that this is an experience that will be a treasured memory and drink it in, let the images and sensations and smells and feelings sear our souls and have it permeate our being.

I used to do a lot of international traveling. Dozens of countries. I enjoyed most of it and got to see exotic places and meet people very different from me. But the overall value of seeing the world in a much bigger picture is something that is profound and I really didn't always know it was happening at the time. I have a difficult time finding words to describe what it did to me. It changed me into a different person. I had many goals for my life when I was young but world travel was not one of them. It so happened that the opportunity came my way and the experiences are now priceless to me.

An opinion:

No person is truly educated, and no American can be a truly grateful person, until they have traveled widely away from their own country. If I had my way, it would be a requirement for citizenship.

An observation:

Those who are enthusiastic about something but have little or no experience of it often seem to have a need to talk about it obsessively and to prove their knowledge of the subject. Those who have done the thing for a long time and have developed skill and expertise often have no need to talk about it at all. But if you want good information or great stories, they are the ones to seek out.

A quote:

Good judgment comes from experience.
Experience comes from bad judgment.

A question:

Who is richer? The person with many wonderful things, or the person with many wonderful experiences?