Aga Aquino

Blog Cover Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

The song went: so much to do, so much to see, so what’s wrong with taking the back seat?

I feel overwhelmed sometimes when life moves so fast, that I can’t seem to process everything and the worst feeling is that I didn’t make the most of life experiences. This makes me think about how yesterday I could have done so much, and today is tomorrow’s yesterday and so I would be feeling the same way.

So much to do.

Yesterday I told JM that we should take a drive around town, it was night and the traffic was light. We talked about so many things and I was relaxing as I put so much of my unconscious energy into focusing on the road, the clutch and the fact that at that very moment I was just with the one I love and nothing else outside that metal box mattered. It was a nice 30 minutes, we saw so much of the City, we saw how the autumn nights were treating the people of Turku. But 30 minutes seemed long in the moment but as I put on my parking brake I felt a heavy blanket of thought fall upon me.

I have several courses started but unfinished online, I have several boxes of models unbuilt and unpainted, my Miata is waiting for its next coat of paint, I have a hundred of euros worth of games in my library still unplayed, the books I started months ago is still unfinished. And the second thought is: why?

The capitalistic society has conditioned me to consume or be afraid of that fact that I am not consuming what the capitalist has to sell me. A course goes 90% of and I would be a dumbass not to take that deal, despite that particular course being a passing interest to me I buy it anyway. Its the same with my models, a Gunpla gets released and I know that it has a limited printing so I buy it only for it to stay in shelves for months because I couldn’t be bothered. More so for games; Steam has the best deals were games are sold for a fraction of price, and the gaming community would just go: this is a game you must play. But it is left un-installed for years.

I’m sure it’s the same for others, the latest ad would show the next generation of consumer products, the next phone, the best thing to hit your face, the brand that the current popular artist endorsed.

But I hate getting dragged into the hype, because with everything I bought over the years, a lot of them collect dust and their value depreciate as the next thing comes along.

But that is the society we live in, there is always something to buy.

But a true free market means that I have a choice, that I can buy when I want and only if I want it, the problem is the marketing and advertising that manipulates me into thinking that I want it.

So what’s wrong with taking the back seat?

In recent years I tried to control my impulsive purchases, I stop getting drawn in by ads, I focus on using up whatever I have bought now and not let them take up space in my shelf, I don’t pre order, and I keep track of what I have bought and see to it that I use them.

My backlog in courses, books, models and games are starting to thin out as well as I try to make time for everything. A chapter a day, and level a night, a model a week, slowly but surely, because when I look forward to my quiet moments, I can relax fully knowing that nothing came to me for nothing.

You Never Know if you Don’t Go

Our capitalistic society puts a value in everything, usually represented in money, but it is usually more than that.

The value of a Book is not just the money you give but the time you put in into reading it, for a book unread is the same worth as an empty notebook. So you are paying in money and time, and the exchange is really only fair if you get back what you put in. I bought a book and read it, so that I have the books full value.

I’m hoping this analogy makes sense because realizing the real worth of things brings to perspective the reason why we participate in the rat race, why we strive for that pay check. Because something bought and not used is just you giving away your money. So personally I took stock of what I have, do I really need a that new model? A new airbrush? The latest game? The most recent book that caught my attention? Perhaps not. Because when I look around my house, there are a lot of things I wanted and already bought.