Creating Experiences

I searched “luxury” on flickr, just to see what people think it is.  What came up was mostly the obvious.  Images of haute couture fashion, high-tech pimped out gizmos, and other things.  One person wrote “living is a luxury”.  Nice attitude.  I should adopt that.

The reason I did this was because I read an article about a well known interior designer who said “luxury is knowledge”.  He went on to say that luxury items are about quality.  If you don’t have the knowledge to evaluate quality, then “luxury becomes about money”. 

It’s funny that all these definitions, with the exception of the guy with the great attitude, all focused on things.  For me, luxury is more about creating a feeling of total contentment and self worth.  Think about what feels luxurious to you.  See how many things are attached.

I’d like to collect what feels like luxury to people.  I’m interested to see what we find.

I recently attended an event that I would call a “Corporate Reunion”.  We’ve all been to various class reunions, and they tend to live up to a pretty standard social expectation.  The event is structured to facilitate connections between people who haven’t seen each other, with enough diversions to fill the awkward gaps that invariably form between people over the years.  We’ve also attended different types of corporate networking events.  They deliver on a different set of social expectations.

But what happens when you are asked to attend a “reunion” event of people who at one time worked together?  Some people still work there, others haven’t in a long time, and everyone else is somewhere in-between.  And what are the social expectations of the event itself?  While the event I attended was a corporate event, the venue was much more like that of a school reunion.  Buffet, drinks, DJ, etc.  But people were mostly there to connect on a professional level. 

Needless to say,  the event didn’t quite match the relationships that it was intended to facilitate.  At one point, the DJ started to crank up the music, and several people told them to tone it down so people could converse more easily.  Several people wondered why it was held on a Saturday night, and not at some more casual location after work on a weeknight.  The attendees consisted of several married people who came without their spouses. 

I didn’t plan the event, and I am happy that it happened as I was able to reconnect with many great people.  But I couldn’t help but think about the meaning of the word “reunion”.  The organizers clearly had an idea of what a “reunion” was, and that’s what they planned.  It seemed to matter less what the nature of the relationships were.

I love the old stone houses in France and Italy.  My dream is to be wealthy enough to one day make it my job to buy them, restore them, and maybe even sell them to deserving owners.  That’s what I like to think. 

The reality is that houses with history and character develop a personality.  When I see a beautiful, old building that has not been treated with the respect it deserves, I feel the need to rescue it.  My husband accuses me of “personifying everything”.  He’s half-right.  I don’t think of houses as human.  But I do love the stories they tell me.  Every house has clues about the lives of the people who lived there.  Sometimes I feel that the house was very much a part of the lives that went on within it, and others are innocent bystanders of circumstances they don’t deserve. 

This is what I love about renovation.  It’s the chance to restore a house to it’s rightful place.  If you look and listen, the house will tell you how it needs to feel, and it’s your job to help it to get there.

Photo of stone house in France from: http://www.24frenchproperty.com/index.php?a=2&b=818

I was talking with a friend of mine the other day, and she brought up an interesting idea.  She calls it “Give it back!”  The idea goes something like this:  Say you are a guy, and you just bought a Subaru Forrester.  You researched the car, decided it was the one that best met your needs, and now that you have it, you like it.  Then you hear that it in some circles, that car is known as the “LesbianMobile du jour”. 

How do you feel about that?   Does it change your experience of owning the car? Does it change the type of research you’ll do the next time you buy a car?

How often do we buy products or services because of the attributes it is given by others?  And who are these people who get to assign this type of meaning?  I think this is what my friend means when she calls the idea “Give it back”.  People don’t want to be labeled by what others think about the things they own. But how often are we doing exactly that? 

This is the first time I’m using WordPress.  I’m trying it because I want to see what all the hype is about.  It has taken me a couple of weeks to write this first post.  Why?  Because I wasn’t sure I wanted to stay here.  I want to write about experiences.  The type people create on their own, and how situations shape their experience. 

Well, my first experience is that I wanted to add a widget to the side of this blog.  I wanted to add the French and Italian words of the day.  I realized that what WordPress allows for convenience, it takes away in control.  I cannot add the widgets from Transparent Language.  I will have to settle for adding the RSS feed.

My other blog is powered by BlogEngine.  Anything can be done, but it’s not easy.  Since I’m not a software person, I cannot write the code myself.  I am dependent on the person who writes for me.  This is a problem, but I could have any widget I want. 

This should be in interesting experiment.  So far my experience with each tool leaves me wanting for something.  At least I should be able to write about experiences.  Let’s see if I can make you feel them through this blog.

Welcome to WordPress.com. This is my first post.  Let’s see if I like WordPress.