Addressing the anxiety factor as a motive for buying watches, Jonny writes:
I don't think I buy watches out of anxiety, or at least if I do then it isn't so directly linked. It might be deep existential anxiety that filters through as a need/want to acquire more things, but I don't feel anxious and then flip open the computer to browse for watches and then buy the first thing that catches my eye to ease my anxiety.
But I would say that the need/want to buy a watch partially, even largely, stems from a kind of deep-rooted existential emptiness and accompanying desire to "fill the void" with surrogate grails. Even the glimmer and aesthetic of a watch has a grail-like quality, as does the form of a beautiful woman. It is something of a specific flavor of beauty and aesthetic pleasure, and I would argue that we have a legitimate need to experience beauty as a kind of "lesser grail," an echo of the True Grail. That's why the watch quest is endless: any watch can only ever be a surrogate for the real thing (which is not a "thing").
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