Today at the gym, I dropped my discman. This isn't a big deal. I've dropped it tons of times. It's made it through some pretty hefty stuff, considering I got it sometime around my freshman year of high school, and I've dropped it countless times since then. It's also been through many, many sandy places (mostly days on the beach and the desert of Morocco), and managed to come out okay. Sure, it's a little scratched up on the outside, and it doesn't have 45 second skip protection (I think it has 5 second skip protection). It can't go with me running, but it can make it when I'm on the eliptical or the bike at the gym. (And it's been there, hundreds of times probably). It's tried and true, and doing pretty well for its age.
But today, the discman had enough. It finally threw in the towel, after nine long years. It was a very sad moment when I realized the "OPEN" (as in, it's not recognizing the CD) was not going to go away. I was attached to my beat-up-but-plowing-through-it-all discman.
So the era is over. When I think of the use I got out of that discman, I'm happy. I got some bang for my buck on that purchase. My discman lasted a long time, and it wasn't beloved because it was snazzy and cool. It was beloved because it did what it was supposed to do (play CDs), and it stood the test of time. But I've been thinking: wouldn't it be cool if this is how it worked with everything we bought or owned? Then there'd be less clutter in our lives (on many levels). That would be some wise and sustainable living.
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