For The Love Of It

Words change over time, a couple of centuries ago if somebody said your were artificial it would be meant as a high compliment. Instead of meaning fake or unnatural, an artificial person was somebody very involved in the arts. An artisan, artist, patron or ardent admirer were all once proudly artificial people.

Peculiar is another word that has shifted in meaning. Once peculiar referred to person property usually land and livestock. In Renaissance England there is a body of law referred to as pecuniary laws which deal with payments, payments of fines, paying tribute to the king and paying rent to your local lord. Back then you would say that land is peculiar to that person.

Later on  peculiar  meant something unique and exotic. So an explorer might put in his journals that the climate, the wildlife or native culture were "peculiar" to some far away location. Not long after the Crimean War and the American Civil War peculiar began to describe behavior.  When large numbers of veterans displayed what we would think of as symptoms of PTSD, it was polite to say that odd behavior was peculiar to him. From there you can see how it easy bit was to make the linguistic jump to the word's current meaning.

Words do this all the time. It can be very surreal talking to fundamentalists of one kind or another over the meanings of words though the centuries.  That to bolster an argument somebody will find the perfect quote, infuse it with a new meaning and ignore the fact it had exactly the opposite meaning when it was first said.

One word that shows the tectonic shifts of definition is "amateur".  An amateur was a person that devoted themselves to a singular pursuit purely for the love of it.  

Amateur was first a French word and like any word it comes with cultural logic. An amateur in any field was much more highly prized than any "professional".  It was seen that a person that did something out of love was more trustworthy than somebody who was just merely paid for the service. The whole relationship between armature and professional totally flip-flop by the early 20th century when professionalism takes root and mass organizations by their sheer economies of scale out produce the work of the driven individual.

Sherlock Holmes was one of the last great amateur. He was always out foxing the London Police Force, which in Victorian times was the world's largest and most advanced. Even though Sherlock Holmes was on the cutting edge of science and technology of his day, it was logic and dogged determination that really solved the crime.

What people do out of love is amazing. In my ramblings on the weekend I came across a full restored  1966 Barracuda.  If you ever talked to anyone that restored an old or classic automobile, you'll see this is a labor love. Usually a lot more money and time is invested in the restoration than could ever be recouped if the car was sold on the open market.

There was one time I when I was incredibly lost somewhere either in Newark or Bloomfield, New Jersey.  I stopped for directions at an old neighborhood bakery and was stunned with the variety of Italian cookies and pastries for sale.  It was a family owned business and all the confections were made on site by hand. It was one of those times I was glad to be lost.  

Even though I was late for a meeting I bought as many cookies and pastries as I could afford and then had a quick cup of coffee with one of the owners. She told me how difficult it was to keep the business profitable and I had to ask why keep on doing things the traditional way if they are so much more work? The woman was a little confused by that question and answered in a heavily accented voice "we do it this way because that is who we are".

There is a local flea market that was once a power generating station. Before there was a national grid many towns and cities generated their own electricity.  Most of these building got torn down but this one was re-purposed.  One never knows what they will find at a flea market but I also like vendors, many of whom are also collectors or amateur historians.  One retired couple proudly showed off some of their items for sale. I had to ask if they made any money at selling stuff at their booth? They both said it subsidizes their social security checks but they did it because it gave them something to do. "Otherwise we'd only be sitting around watching TV all week".

A few miles down the road is Ott's nursery. For generations it has been a commercial plant nursery. The greenhouses a huge and almost irreplaceable. One of the greenhouses is a jungle display that 80 feet square at the base and the glass arches up over 50 feet from the floor.  One of Otts specialties is orchids and as the manger said -"you have love doing this kind of work."      

The next time I'm going in to Philadelphia I plan to visit two new businesses. One is Viva Video. It is a video rental store in Ardmore. It makes no real financial sense to open a video rental shop in the day and age of Netflix, streaming online and movie downloads -but there it is and it's successful.  Philadelphia and the surrounding area has always had a deep appreciation for film. Viva Video is one of those places where people can meet, talk about movies and then go rent recommended films on the advice from other movie fans.  Netflix  will never have to worry about Viva Video taking away any measurable market share but won't it be nice if there was a Viva Video on every Main Street?

The other business is Greensaw Design & Rebuild. They do architectural salvage. Philadelphia is old city with thousands of abandon buildings. The raw materials for architectural salvage are out there but it is a very difficult business to thrive in. The owners and worker at Greensaw are dedicated to doing slavage in an environmentally friendly way.  Again this is the kind of work that comes out of a sense of purpose.

The greatest dedication to art is to say -"my life is my art".  It is easy to get caught up in idea that poverty is the lack of money. To avoid poverty it suddenly becomes necessary to almost anything to earn money. After a working career of several decades we can look back at a pile of paid receipts.