Unconditional Love

In a world of people looking for love why is it unconceivable to fall into a life long loving relationship with an object. Of course we all fall in love with objects and products, the empathy felt at the point of purchase clearly leads to a loving relationship sometimes lasting years. We form a bond with these things, they become ours. We rely on them and they rely on us, we cherish them, we care for them, and we start to depend on the service they provide. We learn their limitations and adapt our lives accordingly, we know when a battery will run down and how to recharge it, we are happy to lead a co-existent relationship based on inter-dependency. In turn they adapt to us handles wear to our hands, and more intelligent objects learn the way that we live they offer the services which we use more.

This considered, an object which makes us happy today (which we are in love with today) should make us happy tomorrow. However it would seem with most objects this is not the case. As time ticks by, once up to date objects become outmoded as technology or fashion progresses. Design confronts this issue by allowing objects to be upgraded, but by this time the relationship has been irreparably damaged, tainted with the memory of that moment of failure to provide, to be there for us, the moment when we realised that that object has become obsolete, and the effort and expense of upgrading the object seems to be just prolonging the inevitable.

This situation offers the opportunity to annul the feelings of love and dependency between us and our objects and has put our society in a position where we are more than happy to dispose of a once loved object, replacing them with new technologies or styles. Of course with object relationships and human relationships alike individuals grow apart, we develop emotionally and break the ties of once loving relationships, this is healthy and a very human experience, but excepting the failure of a relationship with an object is all too easily done without consideration.

We are no longer able to make do and mend, and are all too eager to replace our things rather than endure the old age induced eccentricities of our existing things. As landfill sites bulge with the plastic fallout of countless failed product/user relationships it is clear that this culture of disposal has become an environmental issue. But perhaps this is not all that this picture is symptomatic of? What else could this scenario mean? Does our inability to become thriftily sentimental about once loved objects, compare to our apparent inability to form lifelong ?thrifty? inter-human relationships? Both situations require perseverance, understanding and desire. Perhaps this is too far fetched, but wouldn?t it be nice to take objects into our lives which will outlive us, objects to pass down to our children, objects loaded with memories and pride.

-- JosephStebbing - 30 Jan 2007