Relative Something

we make our own gravity to give weight to things
then things fall and they break and gravity sings

From “Hour Follows Hour” by Ani DiFranco

I like the idea that we make our own gravity. It explains a lot of drama that people entangle themselves in. A lot of what Ani writes sings to my sensibilities.

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I don’t recall ever watching a golf match on television before, but this weekend, with a PGA tournament being held in a community next to mine, I found myself drawn to engage with it to see a national broadcast (global, even, as I hear it was showing in South Korea– home of yesterday’s winner –at a 14-hour time difference) and how they would portray my part of the world. It was also interesting to compare the weather between my home and that golf course, in terms of wind and rain showers. The commentators made reference to how nice the people of Minnesota were. Is that a stereotype?

It boggles my mind to comprehend the number of people that both attend this event and work to put it on, and the significant effort and expense that is assigned to it. I leads me to consider that tournaments like this are happening all summer long, and most of the time I am completely oblivious to it. Then I begin to wonder, how many other things are going on that people are putting huge amounts of effort and expense toward, to which I also remain oblivious.

It reminds me of a time when I came across a magazine rack and began to actually look at all the magazines for special interests that exist. Subjects that I wasn’t even aware of had entire magazines dedicated to them and businesses in place to pay for advertising to the target audience. Entire industries rise up to respond to any area of interest. Back to golf, I’m flabbergasted that instead of just a sports equipment store providing clubs and balls to golfers, super stores exist that exclusively focus on the one sport of golf. Isn’t it just a little weird how we take things to such extremes? Maybe it is to me because I don’t have any interest in the sport.

That leads me to things like makeup and jewels, two more things that fail to hold value for me. When I hear about how much money is associated with an industry like cosmetics, I am dumbstruck. Just think about how great it would be to win a prize of an unlimited shopping spree in the cosmetics department of a fashionable store. There would be nothing that I value. Ok, I recognize that my gender may define much of that discrepancy, but that just magnifies the craziness to me, that the cosmetics industry would involve huge sums of money and only be marketing to one gender of end user.

What if I was offered a large diamond? It really has no value to me. What would I do with a diamond? Carry it around in my pocket? Or give me a Rolex watch. Sorry, no value.

But these things have incredible value to other people. How is it we get such discrepancy in the human race?

I like Ani’s concept that when things fall and break, gravity sings.