{"id":2456,"date":"2014-06-03T05:49:36","date_gmt":"2014-06-03T09:49:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/?p=2456"},"modified":"2014-06-03T05:49:36","modified_gmt":"2014-06-03T09:49:36","slug":"the-sentimental-value-of-things","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/2014\/06\/the-sentimental-value-of-things\/","title":{"rendered":"The Sentimental Value Of Things"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>Radiolab<\/em> produced an interesting episode on <a href=\"http:\/\/www.radiolab.org\/story\/things\/\" target=\"_blank\">things<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"\/\/www.radiolab.org\/widgets\/ondemand_player\/#file=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.radiolab.org%2Faudio%2Fxspf%2F374816%2F;containerClass=radiolab\" width=\"474\" height=\"54\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>The first half of the program explores how people come to attach value to objects which otherwise have little extrinsic market worth.\u00a0 We can form sentimental bonds with things for several reasons: they may remind us of a special event, a place, a person, an accomplishment, a failure, a bygone era in our lives, and so forth.<\/p>\n<p>The <em>Radiolab<\/em> segment shares a story of a guy who kept a candy sugar egg for over 40 years.\u00a0 Initially, this seems like an odd item for someone to hold for most of his life.\u00a0 But as you hear the interview, you come to appreciate what the egg represented to him.<\/p>\n<p>This characteristic (forming an emotional bond with things) is one of the traits that make us unique.\u00a0 Some people do so relatively easily (they like to keep things), while others tend to discard unnecessary stuff as &#8220;clutter.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m not a hoarder, but sometimes I lean toward the former camp.\u00a0 For the past month I&#8217;ve kept an otherwise worthless trinket merely because of who gave it to me.\u00a0 It&#8217;s not even a person I know well, but I got caught up in the moment.\u00a0 Speculative sentimentalism, if you will.<\/p>\n<p>I don&#8217;t think I&#8217;ll keep the trinket for 40 years, like the guy with the sugar egg.\u00a0 But for now, I won&#8217;t throw it away.\u00a0 It&#8217;s the tangible form of an idea that&#8217;s worth more (to me) than the value of the item itself.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<a href=\"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/2014\/06\/the-sentimental-value-of-things\/\" rel=\"bookmark\" title=\"Permalink to The Sentimental Value Of Things\"><p>Radiolab produced an interesting episode on things. The first half of the program explores how people come to attach value to objects which otherwise have little extrinsic market worth.\u00a0 We can form sentimental bonds with things for several reasons: they may remind us of a special event, a place, a person, an accomplishment, a failure, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n<\/a>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-2456","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized","7":"h-entry","8":"hentry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2456","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2456"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2456\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2458,"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2456\/revisions\/2458"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2456"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2456"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2456"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}