The Luxuries Of Today
John Ink2Quill
www.ink2quill.com

People’s tastes have continued to change down the decades and centuries and what we see as luxury has continued to change too. I’ve heard many times stories of some civilizations on the African continent valuing shells as luxury items. Other civilizations value the beautiful stone jade while we in the West continue to value gold.

Gold as a storer of wealth has its advantages. It’s difficult to destroy. It doesn’t rust and it’s beautiful just to name a few advantages. The stone jade has similar advantages to gold while shells are a lot more fragile. But, if your shells do get smashed I’m guessing you can always go down to the beach and spend the morning when the tide is low looking for more. I don’t know but a storer of wealth should have advantages no matter what they are.

There are different kinds of wealth. Luxury is a type of wealth the is mostly not indispensable but much wanted. It is often something beautiful or it has some kind of cultural significance. Think of the Mona Lisa at the Louvre. It is said to be the most valuable painting in the West and maybe even the world but nobody can give it a price. So, here is a painting that doesn’t really have a pecuniary price but it has enormous cultural value. That is not at all any kind of contradiction or paradox. It really isn’t. You just need to expand your perception of value and luxury.

There is a big difference between luxury and something having a high price tag. Those two concepts are not the same thing. You can have high prices from inflation or maybe a business is being too grabby. You can also have high prices from creating or building something of beauty that will make people gasp in awe. This is true of houses, castles, watches, furniture to name just a few things.

At one point in antiquity, ancient Rome had 1,000,000 residents. The population collapsed when housing got too expensive and you had expensive slums and rich neighborhoods that were even more expensive. Most residents of ancient Rome at this time paid too much to their landlords and they did not have a luxury situation at all. For real luxury we have to recognize that certain conditions have to be met. Otherwise, the good you’re buying is merely expensive and not a luxury.

John Ink2Quill

I2Q Blogs / Opinions AI / ink2quill / john / luxury / opinions / quill /