Thought of the Day 03.17.09

I’ve recently been inventorying my grandfather’s fairly large stamp collection, deciding what to sell and what to keep. In this process, I’ve been intrigued by the interplay of two very different paradigms.

On the one hand, many of the stamps are valuable, which is almost entirely a function of them being rare. On the other hand, many of the stamps are beautiful, which is simply a matter of whether I like looking at them.

Being motivated by beauty and not at all by some rarity fetish, I’m lucky to discover that most of the stamps I like best are also fairly common. Even so, I’m sometimes tempted to rethink my dislike of an ugly stamp just because I’ve discovered that it’s expensive.

I resist this by reminding myself that price and value are not the same thing. In fact, we live in a world where some of the most precious things are also extremely common. It’s almost as if God wanted us not to be deceived by money into thinking ugly things are beautiful simply because they pay well.