Hair tie

A Reddit thread I read on Instagram, (yes, I do read Reddit threads on Instagram) asked the people “what’s the most dystopian thing happening right now that we never thought could happen just 25 years ago”. To this a person had replied “everything as a service; no software developer sells their packages anymore, you just owe $70 forever… No one owns music or movies, which just disappear from streaming services at a whim… purchases are useless without an internet connection and subscription.”

The broken hair tie

It is scary that we don’t own tangibles anymore. Collective ownerships or rights to assets in parts, has surely made assets more approachable to people. But it has led to steep rise in the costs to own the tangibles as absolutes.

The loss of tangibles is not only in the form of assets. But also relationships, hobbies, workplaces. The rise of remote work, the fall of WeWork, the falling demand of physical copies of books, the dry texting between humans. Connection, touch, substance are becoming synonymous to luxury. Almost deviously materialistic in a way.

I met a girl. She had beautiful full head of curls. Her hair tie broke when she was trying to tie her hair. While leaving my house for the day, I just happened to stuff a hair tie in my pocket last minute along with my credit card. I used the credit card to fill the fuel in tank. I offered the hair tie to the girl with beautiful full head of curls. It filled the happy fuel in me.

I cannot do the same over internet. This is what we lose. The intangibles in the tangibles.

The beautiful irony of this all, is that I cannot offer you, my reader, my hair tie. I reached you through the intangibles. Yet I repent here. Writing this on the internet. Seeking connection.

Best,

S