Excess (noun): more than or above what is necessary or usual. Unnecessary indulgence.
Is it just me or do some of you also feel that perhaps most of us actually have enough? Perhaps we don't actually need a better computer with more ram, mega-thingies, or gigga-wotsits. Maybe we don't need a phone that makes coffee, has built-in satellite navigation, and can guide the space shuttle back to earth. What if we do get the TV that's sixty feet wide? Surely there's an eighty-footer coming out soon, isn't there? Perhaps we should wait for that big boy.
Could it possibly be that, as a culture, we've lost a little perspective? Call me crazy, call me wacky, and call me old-fashioned.
Today I took my very manly scooter to the bike doctor for a bit of love; his regular check-up. I handed over the keys to Brady the bike shop guy and he handed me another set of keys for a courtesy bike - a motorbike to get me around for a few hours while the scooter got a once-over. The courtesy bike was a Kawasaki ZX14 - a $20,000, 1400 cc, 200horse-power, 300kph (180mph) weapon. It is one of the fastest production bikes in the world - 0-100kph (0-60mph) in under three seconds - 'cause ya need that. All in all though, a reasonable exchange for my 19hp, 0-100 in sixteen minutes, Taiwanese scooter.
I put my helmet on, hopped on the beast, slipped it into first, let the clutch out, twisted the throttle, and took off. I casually slid the ZX into second, looked down, and was already on the speed limit - with three gears to go. Hardly any revs and I was doing a very lazy 80kph (50mph).
What's the point of this, I thought. It’s an exercise in frustration. It’s like giving a four-year-old a bag of sweets and saying, "Here you go, just don't eat any of them." Great in theory—a bike that'll get me out of the state in seven minutes—but I can't actually use any of the power unless, of course, I want to get to that speed limit in two seconds. Sure I can out-accelerate a Boeing 747 and possibly break the sound barrier, but then what do I do? It's kind of like building a mansion with fifty rooms and only ever being able to go into three of them. ("Sure my place has fifty rooms. I've never been into forty-seven of them, but apparently they're very nice.") It’s pointless.
Why do we build motorcycles that will go 300kph when the fastest we can go (in this state anyway) is 110kph? Why do we get really excited when they bring out a new bike that will do 330kph (200mph) when we can still only do 110?
We don't need, we can't use it, but we want it anyway. When they build one that goes 400, we'll line up for those, too because we love bigger, better, faster - and more. We love excess.
While we're at it, let's get one of those gigantic go-anywhere four-wheel drives with some of those ridiculous wheels and one of those obscenely enormous motors that get ten feet to the gallon. Then let's commute around suburbia in it and see exactly how much additional carbon monoxide we can pump into our already polluted atmosphere - a Hummer, perhaps. You never know when you might have to contend with some stray artillery or a hand grenade from an irate passer-by.
Article comments
1 - Ruvy in Jerusalem
Sometimes less is more?
Craig, from this article, and from my experience both in America and in Israel, less is always more because less means a sustainable economy: more means war, conquest and more space taken up by the dead war heroes in cemeteries...
Does every Israeli need a car when the bus system will take him almost anywhere in the country? Does every American need two cars? Can't life be arranged so that less IS more?
I think it can.