I can tell things are going awry when I want new things

better faster prettier sexier cleaner newer older things that will make the problem (whatever the problem) go away

they don't, of course (as if you didn't know)

all the new things do is make it harder to find what you were looking for under the other things,

the original things

the pain-in-the-ass busted-up broke-down not-working FUBAR horsepokey assmonkey facacta things

because the thing is you do not learn from a thing you thoughtlessly discard or haphazardly shove aside or even lazily disregard

you learn from the things you measure carefully you turn around in your head and your hand feeling their heft and weight and oily accumulation of dirt before deciding whether to keep or scrap or somehow alter

the learning comes from the considering

so when you hit a wall and you NEED NEED NEED a new thing to get you out of an old corner

hunker down and love up what you got

and you'll get it all back in spades, my friend, in spades...

xxx c

Image by thejane via Flickr, used under a Creative Commons license.