The perishable lifestyle: A definition


We still have lasting memories of things that don't last.

Years ago now, a group of friends were gathered...somewhere.

I can't remember where exactly but it doesn't matter. It was the same place that it always is: a comfortably appointed living room, in someone's house. Wine had been poured, glasses refilled who knows how many times. We were laughing, in the zone of effortless social give and take. We were talking but it didn't really matter about what.

Someone joked, I think, about the great flux of money that seemed to pass through our hands, in a year or a month or even of an evening at some times, and how it seemed uncompensated by material gain. The things we spend our money on are largely impermanent: food, drink, experience.

I commented that what we'd bought was a "perishable lifestyle".

The others seemed to like the phrase, and it's been repeated often enough that I think I'm onto something.

We don't get to hold onto the things we spend money on, but our lives are enriched nonetheless. From now until we have a heart attack, I suppose.

So that's a beginning of what I mean, and why I chose this phrase as a title for this blog. I'll be elaborating as time goes by.

Posted: Fri - February 4, 2005 at 09:06 AM          

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