This was inspired by my trip to the bike shop today. I am curious about some of these words and whether or not they are out of fashion because these words are the words I look for when I buy things, but I feel like they aren't what a lot of people look for...
Durable, Reliable, Tough, Long-Lasting. Those words mean so much to me when I buy something. Lightweight, fast, new, etc. aren't as meaningful to me. I want something that won't break and won't need to be replaced in a week.
Other words that I like are hard working, responsible, reliable, honest, trustworthy, practical etc.
Those words are good words too...and I think should be used more and appreciated more...even if they are boring and vanilla.
An example of two words are Brilliant vs Practical.
My Uncle is Brilliant, but not particularly practical. My grandpa is smart but not as Brilliant than his son, and is much more practical. Anyway my brilliant Uncle was given the task to label the size of jackets when he was young and working at my grandpas dry cleaning place in the Bronx, Ernest Winzer Dry Cleaners, which still exists, although my grandpa has nothing to do with it anymore. My Uncle, being so Brilliant wrote sizes on the jackets like four squared times two plus four and three to the third plus two squared etc. You get the point.
Certainly that is a brilliant way to look at the numbers, but as you can imagine it wasn't very practical to the tuxedo rental place that sent the jackets to be cleaned. When they looked at the paper bag type material (This happened in the 60's) that used to cover dry cleaned clothes the people getting them had no idea what size anything was because those people had never gone to college and done advanced Math. To them four squared times two pus four was a CRUEL joke.
Brilliant is good, but it should also be combined with practicality too. I'm all for new ways of doing things and pushing the envelope and progressing and making the seemingly impossible practical, but at the same time you just have to have common sense.
Talent, new, exciting, flashy etc, are all nice words, but sometimes I think durable, reliable, responsible, hard working etc. are under utilized and under appreciated.
And jesus man...I googled Ernest Winzer Cleaners and I found a photo of my grandpa that I never have seen before...Man the internet is amazing...freakishly amazing.
And if your really bored and want to try to pick out my grandparents have fun...wow...my great grandparents are in that one too. My great grandpa was a German prisoner of war in China during the First World War. I also believe that he never learned how to drive.
http://winzercleaners.com/LIBRARY/About%20Us/1949_RoseStecker.jpg
This eliminates a few more
http://winzercleaners.com/LIBRARY/About%20Us/MrW_2ndWife.jpg
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