Repair vs replace

In grade four for some reason I came across the idea of perpetual motion. We had some weird teachers - 'Tante Pauline' once stuck a pin through her hand in front of me, I *think* to teach me something about heartache (my crush had moved on to another boy). Anyhow - perpetual motion machines preoccupied me for quite some time.

I remember we had some kind of gardening project and I wanted to make a self-contained 'jungle' with some dandelions and uprooted maple seedlings I had planted in a tupperware. If I could only cover it with plastic wrap or something wouldn't that be cool?

This was just after Skylab had reentered the atmosphere - a heady time when my greatest hope was for a chunk of the space station to land in my backyard, or somewhere else safe, but accessible.

Anyhow - the self-contained ecosystem didn't pan out, though one of the seedlings now shades my parents house, but there was a lingering impact on my psyche. I suppose something analogous to Platonic ideals - the notion of perfectibility, some crap like that.

So for years 'repair vs replace' has puzzled me.

We inherited my parents 1985 Saab 900 around 2002 or so (fact check needed) - and in my 'forms irrational attachments' psychological framework I dreamt I would restore it and that it would last forever. Eventually, after 1) leaking gas 2) having the forward tilting hood flip up at speed 3) overheating 4) $2000 of swedish brakes 5) the inner lining starting to dangle like in some 50s harem movie 6) screwy electrical system that sometimes meant the car just stopped 7) the front bumper just falling off one day, and a few other things, the nail in the coffin was a one two punch of a) the seatbelt that held the baby’s car seat disintegrating (luckily with no baby in car) and b) a dead battery just as winter was starting with all the fun of constantly having to move the car to dodge snow removal.

I walked the keys to the garage and I believe paid $50 for the scrap guy to haul it away.

Now you savvy business types probably have some kind of fancy formula like "if costs of maintenance > cost of financing new vehicle, replace the vehicle" - but it took me a long time to think that way.

And now I recognize I handle other existential questions with a similar level of active self-confusion.

Like for twenty years I've wondered if I need to go back to school, switch careers, or otherwise reinvent myself, yet plod along in the so called entertainment business not really making serious money, but with enough open bars and interesting people to keep rolling forward.

It comes down to god knows what - indecisiveness? A belief that it is better to slowly evolve than attempt revolutionary change (curse you BSc, I should have studied poli sci)

But the fact remains that I still want to ’make movies’ or write or otherwise masturbate publicly - and know that my major obstacle is commitment. Some Facebook friends posted a photo of the size of their latest grant application and it just screamed at me ’you’re not actually serious...’

So what? Now that I know that self-involvement is demonstrably neurochemically pleasurable (link) I’ll stick with that for awhile. And who knows? Indulging in something pleasurable that actually sees me produce a thing or two might be as close to a perpetual motion machine as I'm ever likely to get. Just watch out if I ask you to pass the Kleenex...