Almost every day we abstract, we generalize, we average. When we speak business, it's a target market - not an individual at a particular moment, making a personal decision. When we talk finance, it's average return, trends. Politics, well - you can imagine.
The picture is a small display, twenty or so items, of 287. Items collected over thirty years. Items representing early industrial efforts - research, practical application, and practise.
One of Browning's original pinhole cameras. One of Edison's wax cylinder recordings. A coal miner's kerosene lantern. A Bakelite static generator, a precision scale.
I've been in business almost all of my career. When it comes to these items I am faced with an uncomfortable reality. Average doesn't work, nor generalization or target markets. These items are not particularly valuable, but cannot be dismissed. Each means something and is worth something to someone - but not to me.
Selling them makes sense, but how does one sell 287 unique pieces? How does one describe, even discover, the piece - each one?
I don't have an average family, average cars, normal friends, or live in an average city or country. Everything has specifics; specifics that make them unique, that make them special. Generalizing allows one to cruise through life - handling multiple decisions, numerous items of work, a variety of studies, even casual relationships - without really getting to the intensely intimate details.
The picture is a small display, twenty or so items, of 287. Items collected over thirty years. Items representing early industrial efforts - research, practical application, and practise.
One of Browning's original pinhole cameras. One of Edison's wax cylinder recordings. A coal miner's kerosene lantern. A Bakelite static generator, a precision scale.
I've been in business almost all of my career. When it comes to these items I am faced with an uncomfortable reality. Average doesn't work, nor generalization or target markets. These items are not particularly valuable, but cannot be dismissed. Each means something and is worth something to someone - but not to me.
Selling them makes sense, but how does one sell 287 unique pieces? How does one describe, even discover, the piece - each one?
I don't have an average family, average cars, normal friends, or live in an average city or country. Everything has specifics; specifics that make them unique, that make them special. Generalizing allows one to cruise through life - handling multiple decisions, numerous items of work, a variety of studies, even casual relationships - without really getting to the intensely intimate details.
3 comments:
You need to go to bed earlier :-)
After dinner coffee; not possible.
it looks like an antique collection but I am not sure. Could also be stuff you can buy every yea at our "free-market" (Queens day April 30). It's where people sell the stuff they bought last year from people who it that year before from other people etc. They call it cleaning the barn.
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