Café Notes II, Ideas About Boundaries, Limits, the Hassle of What Worth the Money, Time, & Effort

I don't like sounding the curmudgeon.  It's insulting enough to have a body changing in ways that makes doing things you used to do that much harder, but it's never a good idea to take it out on anyone else.  You might start out looking for your humanity by pushing your boundaries and pressing your limits.  You might begin with the notion that no detail is too small, no effort too great to arrive at your goals.  But I tell you this turns around when you're ready for socialized medicine and the experiences of conditionality and limitation are far more important ways to reach honest self-assessments.

One of the best take-aways of the great Bhagavadgita is Krishna's nearly-Jersey-esque admonition that we need to pay attention and stop complaining. If you are doing the former with any seriousness then you don't have time to be doing much of the latter.  So I hope this is not registered a complaint.  Rather, it is a rumination on the price of paying attention.

When what is worth our attention is something we can choose we're in a decidedly privileged position.  After all there's plenty that requires our heedfulness that is anything but pleasant much less an actual choice.  The world has a way of making its imperatives undeniable.  That said, where we can decide to focus is also where we can choose to care.  There's much that I can admire that no longer brings me wholly into focus even though I somehow do care at least as much as I ever have.  No detail is yet too small but does that mean that I still want a life of such exquisite detail?

There are more and better options for bespoke boots and jackets and selvedge denim than at anytime I can think of in my lifetime, especially with makers from America, Indonesia, China, and Japan joining the market with exceptionally fine work.  Bespoke is personal in ways I can take personally.  I used to help design bespoke bicycles, which are not the same as custom.  Custom lets you choose almost everything, almost without restrictions or very few boundaries.

When you visit Nick's Boots you get a great custom menu though I do wonder if they will actually do what you ask for just because you can.  Interventions?  But with bespoke the idea is that you don't get free rein.  Instead you get to work from within the clear boundaries and values established by the maker.

You don't go to Huntsman looking for an Armani suit.  Huntsman decides aplenty for you, not only in construction but in details that hopefully suit your tastes but may not violate theirs.  Custom can bring real catastrophe while bespoke puts limits on the client.  It's best to know or sense how this spectrum between your choices and the maker's boundaries work for you.

I have seen so many custom make ups go bad that I don't think them worth further comment.  I do find it interesting when makers will concede to customer choices.  Is the customer always right?  In what world is that ever a good idea.  This is like allowing the student to run the classroom.  Why bother having a teacher qualified in ways they are not decide what is better?  Alas, grown ups are not anymore reliable in making judgments but how much the maker decides for us runs straight into taste, freedom, personal choice, phew.  Where do we draw our lines?

We all have our boundaries and limits even when we don't fully understand them or can articulate them. I just bowed out of Springsteen tickets when I couldn't find one for under $750 in a seat worth having. I have been around this guy since at least 1972, before Greetings. I am thrilled he has made a fortune and this is what the market will (apparently) bear.

I harbor neither jealous nor resentment to those who choose the cost---that's a value judgment and it's easy to applaud when others get what they wnt.  But for me, the boundary is present, I'm not going further, so no thanks.  Travel, parking, and other people--- all of these factor into the is-it-worth-it-to-me equation and that's just a way of saying that it's not really one decision  or a simple matter since complexities are inevitable.  I don't need to advise or to speak for others: it's important to think about the bigger picture and what's worth it to you.  

I use this example of buying a Boss ticket to apply some similar logic to fine boots or an expensive (leather) jacket or really anything else.  I especially think of mechanical watch prices nowadays. I'm decidedly out of that game despite so much admiration and respect for the makers.  Somehow it's just crossed a line for me.

I'm not sure how to express when I am certain I've reached my tipping point though I can usually list the factors that have brought on  the deal breaker.  Things I used to like or willingly tolerated may no longer seem as palatable.

The issue is hassle.  Do I want yet another thing to do?  If you've never done bespoke I get the thrill and the novelty and the excitement about having something that's yours.  I guarantee you that you'll reach your limit and fear for you if you don't.

Currently that less hassle quota can't be gainsaid---this is why such great boot makers like Role Club or Kreosote win all of my esteem but have not enough appeal to make me want to dive into a process that will involve measurements, sketches, and conversations.  Sending in sketches and numbers, talking it over?  Isn't there a simple Brannock 10D in this equation?  I've done bespoke plenty of \ times in my life and I'm just over it.

I get the precision, the experience of being in the game and one-off, the feel of bespoke, the perfect outcome.  But I don't need a perfect outcome as much as I need a process that asks less of me and produces 95% as much.  Offer me something that fits and is, more or less, within reach (money and time), and I'm in.  I would pay the same price just not to feel the hassle.  

For sure, boots are something you can really screw up and given the state of feet, I can understand how those with needs are just thrilled finally to get something that works for them. But my feet, like many of the other features of a life well-lived, are mostly unremarkable, or so it seems to me.  There's much good to be said about being "normal" when that means you can manage without special needs and are looking to be happy with what comes.  None of this means compromising quality or less care and obsession: it 's just about fewer wants and far less desire for the involvement that others might enjoy.