How many times you have heard your parents or grandparents
wistfully talking about the furniture they bought, there first (and many times
only) bike or car. How all those things were not just things for them as they
lived with them for so many years that they became a part of their identity! Some
of the folks we knew as our parents’ friends could actually be labeled with
their vehicles or clothes, because they were just there, always, never changing.
You would often witness them sweating over the quality of the stuff and be
extremely particular about what they were buying because it always seemed like
a life time decision and hence all the due diligence was worth it. I have a
chair at my parents’ place that is 40+ years old and that’s just one among many
other things and definitely not the oldest. But gone are those days, I believe,
and for good (both in terms of never coming back as well as this being good as
a trend).
The trend is changing and the mindset is changing too and I like
it. The static nature of life is giving way to a more fungible and flexible
mindset. The life of a job used to be 35-40 years because most of the older
generation worked with government or government like private companies. People would
often stick to their hometowns as much as it was possible. It wasn’t uncommon for
people to pass up promotions just to be able to stay in the same place. Having
this set up, it made some sense to invest a lot of time and attention in
setting up your house as you were doing it once forever but not so any more. This
generation isn’t sticking to jobs or cities or countries or marriages (not
good!) for too long, so it is only natural to adjust the rest of our habits
accordingly.
I am not one of those who fall in love with their stuff. I
hold all the stuff of life at a distance and a strong believer of buy and sell
approach. I think finally, the world is now coming to a place which I feel more
comfortable with. There is a great second hand online market and you don’t have to spend a bomb or weeks finding the right stuff for you.
You just have to log in, browse through the ads and voila, you are done.
Many years ago when I moved to Bangalore, even when I could
have transported some stuff at my new employer’s cost, I decided to take only
what I could with me on the flight. Coming here, a lot of weekends were spent
in finding the right shops and then one by one I got things and buying after
marriage is a totally different ballgame that I won’t even venture to discuss
today. So, for my bachelor setup, I had to go for new stuff, because there was
no reliable marketplace that I could use to buy decent goods at decent price. The
world today is so much better though.
We are rolling stones and we are not looking to gain moss, we
find our freedom and salvation in online marketplaces!
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