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the Velveteen Rabbit
Mar. 20th, 2021 11:10 amCracked my phone's screen yesterday, which is the first time I've cracked a phone screen. I fumbled with my cold hands while pulling it out of a pocket under a coat, and it landed on its corner on concrete. It still works just fine but I am treating it gingerly because I could slice a finger running it across cracked glass and I'm not confident of its structural integrity under pressure.
My phone is a deliberately very cheap phone so I don't have to worry about this exact situation and can replace it without a second thought.
Am I doing that?
Of course not. Of course I'm going to put some kind of reinforcing film over it and continue to use it, the same way I will hold together $5 sunglasses with safety pins until the plastic disintegrates, the same way I continue to patch threadbare trousers I never liked in the first place, the same way I am awaiting delivery of a $15 kit to patch a chip in a mug I bought for a quarter in a house full of other mugs I like better.
I am not a rational economic actor and although I do not believe inanimate objects experience sadness or fear physical decline I still experience sympathetic pains on their behalf.
My phone is a deliberately very cheap phone so I don't have to worry about this exact situation and can replace it without a second thought.
Am I doing that?
Of course not. Of course I'm going to put some kind of reinforcing film over it and continue to use it, the same way I will hold together $5 sunglasses with safety pins until the plastic disintegrates, the same way I continue to patch threadbare trousers I never liked in the first place, the same way I am awaiting delivery of a $15 kit to patch a chip in a mug I bought for a quarter in a house full of other mugs I like better.
I am not a rational economic actor and although I do not believe inanimate objects experience sadness or fear physical decline I still experience sympathetic pains on their behalf.
