When I was a tyke, a poor tyke, I had a bag of toys that I collected. These were all my toys, and I carried it from place to place as my "living situation" changed; meaning I couch-surfed most of the time, sleeping on the couch of whichever marginally more stable adult I happened to be with. I treated these things like an old person might treat a jar of sea-shells they collected on an exotic vacation from their youth. You paw at them, look at them, cherish them.
Older, having friends from the public school, eventually I was invited to visit their homes, and I was appalled. They were surround by stuff and things, just stuff and things, as far as the eye could see. Any direction I looked, especially in the kids' rooms, and across the back-yard, was something that trumped my entire collection. New, shiny, amazing stuff. Nerf guns and video games and huge stuffed animals and darts and jarts and just a cornucopia of things.
What really surprised me was playing video games with these kids, my fellows. Whenever they got mad, they would grab the nearest thing and just hurl it, against whatever. Sometimes even the screen, which is an expense my tyke brain couldn't even imagine. Even with their little kid arms, something precious would crack or even burst in a shower of plastic against a wall, against a dresser, against a VCR, against a screen--cracking the screen even--and this amazed and appalled me.
You go back to that other kids' house a month later, and it's all back to square one. Hole in the wall fixed. No shards of plastic. TV replaced. Controllers replaced. Carpets vacuumed. Stuff painted, if need be. The next time the other team scored, or they lost their last Contra life, boop, there goes the TV again, no big deal.
Not even a little surprised that these little collegiate crackers don't understand and don't mind when stuff gets destroyed. In their minds, somebody backstage just replaces it between scenes.
When I was a tyke, a poor tyke, I had a bag of toys that I collected. These were all my toys, and I carried it from place to place as my "living situation" changed; meaning I couch-surfed most of the time, sleeping on the couch of whichever marginally more stable adult I happened to be with. I treated these things like an old person might treat a jar of sea-shells they collected on an exotic vacation from their youth. You paw at them, look at them, cherish them.
Older, having friends from the public school, eventually I was invited to visit their homes, and I was appalled. They were surround by stuff and things, just stuff and things, as far as the eye could see. Any direction I looked, especially in the kids' rooms, and across the back-yard, was something that trumped my entire collection. New, shiny, amazing stuff. Nerf guns and video games and huge stuffed animals and darts and jarts and just a cornucopia of things.
What really surprised me was playing video games with these kids, my fellows. Whenever they got mad, they would grab the nearest thing and just hurl it, against whatever. Sometimes even the screen, which is an expense my tyke brain couldn't even imagine. Even with their little kid arms, something precious would crack or even burst in a shower of plastic against a wall, against a dresser, against a VCR, against a screen--cracking the screen even--and this amazed and appalled me.
You go back to that other kids' house a month later, and it's all back to square one. Hole in the wall fixed. No shards of plastic. TV replaced. Controllers replaced. Carpets vacuumed. Stuff painted, if need be. The next time the other team scored, or they lost their last Contra life, boop, there goes the TV again, no big deal.
Not even a little surprised that these little collegiate crackers don't understand and don't mind when stuff gets destroyed. In their minds, somebody backstage just replaces it between scenes.