A thought: the reason why I don’t like to buy things brand new is that it takes no skill.
For example, if you wanna buy something brand new, the only “skill“ you display is your taste. but having a certain taste doesn’t mean skill.
I’ve never bought a car that cost more than $2500
In my whole life, I’ve never bought a car that was worth more than $2500. I even remember as a highschooler, thinking that it was absolutely insane that people would spend $30,000 on a brand new car.
The Reason I like to buy used cars is this: it takes a combination of luck, scale and chance to get something good. And this is fun.
For example, going on craigslist and filtering it by the following:
- Owner
- Manual transmission
For example, it seems that the best bang for the buck car is a used Subaru that is manual transmission.
Is this why I love street photography?
Then perhaps a reason I Also Love Street Photography is that it does take a combination of luck skill and chance to make a good photo, or at least be presented with interesting opportunities.
We have more pride in bragging how little we paid for it
For example, the last car I bought was a 2003 Subaru outback wagon, manual transmission, that we bought for only $800. For me, I had the most fun and bragging and asking people guess how little I paid for it.
And the great thing about spending so little on cars this: because I knew that we were moving back to California, spending so little on the car makes me less attached to it. This means that it made me feel more free. That I could ditch it whenever I wanted, without being beholden to it.
If I spend a lot more money on the car, I would feel trapped and attached to it. Then we might have had to do the unfortunate cross-country road trip with it. I am glad that we ultimately flew back to California from Rhode Island, than doing the road trip.
The best life is where we actually have to exhibit skill.
A lot of Americans have the wrong notion of thinking that they will be happy if they won the lottery, or perhaps were raised with a silver spoon. But in actuality, the best life is in which we have to exhibit and display our courage, and harness luck, chance and skill to advantage ourselves.