Horological Meandering

ripwatch
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They wouldn't have been the only ones...

Hi Thomas,

Never mind the crowd at your talk: I imagine that a fairly hefty proportion of the folks who follow this site were nodding off by the second paragraph of my initial post, never mind Nick's.   Trust me, I know that my particular brand of navel gazing is far from everyone's cup of tea, and I'm continually delighted that this site is so willing to indulge my periodic eruptions.

Regarding your second point (about how few of the folks in your audience would've given a damn about this sort of airy-fairy introspective hoo-ha [my words, deliberately chosen]), it's a funny thing.  Not too long ago I bought an Omega Planet Ocean, for two reasons: one, I love the way it looks, and two, it has the Daniels co-axial escapement inside it, which is something affordable and horologically meaningful that my helter-skelter little collection didn't include. 

Did I ponder whether it'll be reliable?  Did I contemplate its place on the everyday-versus-luxury spectrum?   Did I worry that I was throwing my money away on a personal indulgence when I could've given it to charity? Did I agonize that I was supporting an industry that seems to have thrown its hand in with the upperest of the moneyed upper crust, part of which I most definitely am not? Did I pontificate about the whichness of the why?  Did I, in short, do any of the sort of stuff that a few minutes' perusal of some of my posts would suggest I might?

God no.  I looked, I loved, I had the money, and I bought.  It took about 15 minutes, and most of that was fitting the bracelet to my wrist.  No introspective hoo-ha, no angst.  And it's become one of my very favorite watches, perhaps the favorite.

My point?  Just that for me, the specifics of the watches themselves don't present much fodder for conversation.  I don't know nearly enough about either the industry or the innards of watches to contribute to those threads.  No, for me, simply thinking about some of the abstract issues that sorta/kinda involve watches is a fun thing to do in and of itself.  Some of my posts probably come across as angst, and God knows I've been known to write that I'm "wrestling with" these issues, and indeed I am, but it's in a sort of distanced abstract sense.  And I enjoy it. 

Weird, huh?

If ever a forum name was tailored to my brand of posting, "Horological Meandering" is it.

Pontificationally yours,

-Rip