MY PRACTICAL SIDE, MY WILD DREAMING SIDE
As I’ve hinted at all along I have lusted after the Vision Pro at $3500, without ever seeing it, and have been held back by my practical self which balks at spending money. My impractical dreaming of what could be side imagines the opening up of possibilities that the Vision Pro will present, all of the stimulation that it will provide, all the hours of my retirement it will fill. But my practical side discovers in a New York Times article that their way of defining financial levels puts the rich earning over $145,000 a year, the middle class earning $50,000 to $145,000, and the poor stumbling along at incomes below $50,000. I am in this lowest category, scraping along. As my friend Tom Showalter pointed out I am saved from dire poverty, from homelessness, from living hidden away with relatives, by owning a house. Rent is enormously high in Asheville. I am also saved from the average monthly car payment of over $900 a month according to another friend, Phil Deihn, by owning two old cars, one of which I paid $500 for and the other $2000 for. When one dies I will drive the other. And again I am saved from penury by Social Security and Medicare, the loss of either would put me over the edge of poverty. It is probably my every four months wellness visits paid by Medicare that provide the preventive care that keeps me healthy.
So here I am, on the edge of poverty traveling overseas for six months of this year, flying high, just coming home for visits after months of adventure during which I am taking spatial videos to let me convey my experience through the very expensive, $3500, Vision Pro.
Something is nuts here, but so far I have followed my dreams and not let practicality get in the way and am just a few days from flying off to Europe again.
Every second day, practicality intrudes. Where in the world will I get the $300 a month, interest free, by which Apple will let me spread the payments over a year?
But on alternate days I don’t care, I want it, it will heighten the intensity and delight of my 87th year. How many years do I have left with my knees still working to travel? If I am going to enter the world of spatial video I have to do it now.
I know that I am going through what everyone goes through when they make a big purchase. I know what the cautious, practical course of action is, saving my money in case I make it to 103, saving my money until some unforeseen event threatens to wipe me out, not being a damn fool.
But then, like most everyone, I can feel myself weakening, weakening, weakening. Lust takes over and I rationalize, rationalize and rationalize. And even then I know that after I give in to my irrational, lusting side, the day after I buy it, if I do, I will feel buyer’s remorse and realize that I have made a giant mistake and that the Vision Pro won’t fulfill any of my dreams. But I also know this sense of doom will last only three days until lust will take over again and I will go to bed at night with the Vision Pro beside me on the pillow and dream sweet dreams, letting the future take care of itself.
BILLYBABA’S WANDERING 