I copied shamelessly the marketing line for the new Kia Soul. Indeed, it is weird to see this commercial just as I was thinking to write something about the soul of objects – and out of all the objects my mind was focusing on my old and modest car. Indeed, I drive a Mazda Protégé, almost 9 years old, 174,000km which was in 2 accidents (one with my ex driving, in 2003 and another one with me, in Dec 2008). By its value on the market – maybe 3K – it’s almost a junk. Even so, after the last accident, I was very happy to get it fixed instead of having the insurance company declare it totaled.
I did manage to upset a woman some time ago – she didn’t say anything but did avoid me after that – by saying that cars are like women. It’s got to be a men thing: when you purchase them, you can’t have enough of all the features and bells and whistles and although you know there are better things out there, you feel like you found the one. Then, 6 mo to 1 year, you get used and start watching all the new models with different eyes, telling to yourself: “If only you could have waited another 1 year, you could have gotten heated seats at no cost”… But that is (should be?) a passing phase and if the car is reliable, if it doesn’t give you headaches, the initial excitement and passion you had for it transforms into some sort of deep attachment, into the warm feeling of knowing that it will take you where you want and you will take it where it needs (mechanic, car-wash etc.)… I should probably used “she” instead of “it” because after all these it’s become more of a “she” than an object.
I know, objects don’t really have a soul… but they receive one from the owner. After I divorced I considered selling my car just so I can get rid of all the associations between it and my complete family. I was hurting and many times I would see with the corner of my eye the shadow of my ex watching me with caring eyes, love maybe… This car had taken us in so many wonderful places – in N Quebec for a wonderful vacation on a huge lake, to Toronto to see CN Tower, Royal Ontario Museum, Wonderland, The Zoo, to Niagara, to Montreal – so many times -, to Quebec City, Sandbanks, Mont Tremblant, Calabogie… These metal sheets have incorporated a wide range of feelings: excitement when leaving, panic when missing the exit, rush when being late, mellow when swept by the sunset orange light we returned home from a sun-filled day, worries when noticing a strange engine sound… It has been a pot in which the feelings of a family (mother, father and son) boiled and mixed… and as such it got memories stuck all over it.
I didn’t sell it because I realized that I should not punish it for things somebody else did onto me. My car did everything I imagined it will do. There are cars 10x better: more HP, lighter on gas, more comfortable and with more options included – but I wish against all reason that I could keep this car forever. Like 20-30 years ago, when people didn’t have the financial power to change cars too often, my car is a member of my family. I know when there will be time to say goodbye, no matter what fancy, sport, expensive car I will be driving then, a tear will glitter in the corner of my eye as I see it leaving, driven by somebody else.
This is why I deplore sometimes the society we live in. Consuming society, peer pressure, our own shallow desires and thoughts, make us replace objects before they have a soul. Maybe it’s better – no attachment, no tears in the eyes when they break and need to be replaced… but also the bad habit of changing something just because we afford it, because we got bored, because there is something better out there. Even the love I notice some people have for their collection cars is not what should be. Going back to my comparison, I believe it is like saying to a woman “I can love you only if you win Miss Universe or at least Miss Arizona contest, if your breasts are this size and if you get me to where I want in 5.3 sec”. I see this often – the Nissan Z350 or BMW Z4 or some other fancy car washed, waxed, loved, cared by the same people who, in winter time, drive some rusted Corolla or Civic, letting it disintegrate and all its memories together with it.
No, I am not crazy – it’s just an object and when time will come I will do the reasonable thing to do. On the other hand I feel that we live in a time when things don’t get to have a soul anymore and I somehow feel that this makes our life less rich.
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