I’ve been thinking about shininess — shiny things. And bells. (Well, bell curves.) Consider:

Some people love new things. They’re mesmerised by the shininess of the new and the novel. To these people, the fresh-from-the-factory gleam is captivating.

This is not surprising to me. I am probably an acolyte of the Cult of the New. ‘^^ (Sometimes — depends on what it is.) What’s a little more surprising to me is the opposite:

Some people love old things. They’re mesmerised by the shininess of the tried and the true. To these people, the sheen of antiquity is what is irresistible.

For instance, notice how the patina of well-worn gold (or platinum or some other precious metal) is often considered attractive. Same thing with the patina of worn leather. There’s even a market for things like distressed paper and distressed jeans. (In the case of the latter, think about this: you’re actually paying — usually extra — for holes to be pre-torn into your jeans. o__O)

In other words, people are selling things — because other people want to buy them — that have been worn down in advance. That’s a sign that, essentially, wear and tear is desirable (at least in some cases). Isn’t that interesting?

Maybe that’s why, as a society, we cherish our young and (in some cultures, at least) revere our elderly. And the younger or the older, the more precious to us. That is, we really care about babies and we really care about those about to die from old age.

(Okay, okay, if we’re not just complete monsters, we care about people who are about to die in general, but it’s only the oldest segment of a population that dies from old age — by definition. XD My point is that, all things being equal, we care, at least theoretically, relatively more about our great grandparents who about to pass than our grandparents who are not yet at that stage.)

What’s collectively less attractive seems to be the middle-aged. (Actually middle-aged — I’m not talking about how some people use “middle-aged” as a way of saying “old”. XD) In fact, doesn’t it seem like, once one becomes middle-aged, one starts to become socially irrelevant (especially when one is a woman)?

Why is it that those things (things in general, not just people) in their middle years are not shiny to us? Why is it that we think what’s new is shiny and what’s old can be shiny† — but we don’t seem to think that the middling aged is all that (or at all) shiny?

Is it the relative abundance of the middle years? After all, the middle part is the longest part. To go back to people’s lifespans for a sec: once we reach adulthood but before we reach old age, we’re in that stage of life for most of our lives. Depending on culture, youth is thought to be at most ~20 years and old age at most ~20 years (if we’re lucky to get that long), which means that if we live to the average modern lifespan of ~80 years, then our middle years are twice that: ~40 years.

If we were to plot age (not necessarily of people) as a function of relative importance, we’d see a bell curve. (It’d be an inverted bell curve, but a bell curve nonetheless. And, yes, this does depend on context, but probably in general.) And as with every bell curve, the ends of this curve are definitionally smaller than the middle. Is that what makes those parts more important to us? Is it that there are just less of those beginning and end bits?

In other words, is it really just scarcity that we find “shiny”?

Scarcity does seem to drive value — that is, the more scarce something is, the more valuable it becomes. . . .

But surely scarcity cannot always be valuable! Because then abundance would never be desirable, and it definitely is in some cases.

And that naturally begs the question: Well, in what cases is scarcity preferable and in what cases abundance?

I have no answers to this. XP This entire post is merely an example of the mental perambulations I go on when, for instance, I see something and think, “Ooooh, shiny. . . . (*ڡ*)”

Welcome to my brain. XD

†What’s old is not always shiny, of course — some things merely rust or tarnish with age, after all —, but some old things can be.