Now, there is nothing I need that is new. With the exception of socks and underwear, because I happen to be a bit fastidious that way, almost everything I buy is from a thrift shop, rummage or yard sale. Which makes it tough, for instance, when I decide that I need something, a bed, for example, as I have to comb the local thrift shops and rummage sales until something suitable turns up. And often it would be far easier and more economical, considering the time and effort spent, to simply go to "Mattress Depot" and plonk down on a new posture-pedic, but that's not the point.
It's about recycling perfectly good furniture and household items that were otherwise bound for the landfill and supporting local charities. It's about thumbing one's nose at the rampant consumerism that tries to govern our lives. It's about challenging the conventional ideas of wealth and beauty and turning rubbish into art. It's about finding beauty and function in the old and worn. And it's about being unique in a homogoneous society that values only the new and generic.
It's not about finding what you thought you needed or were looking for. It's about finding what you weren't looking for, the thrill of the chance find or discovery, the rare book, (think first edition of Eddington's "The Expanding Universe", or Speake's "Journey to the Source of the Nile"), the 150 year old candlesticks, the 1930's Rolex watch, the vintage clothing or broken scientific instruments to be used in your impending art exhibition....the list is as vast and endless as your imagination.
Invariably, with patience, you will always find what you're looking for, and having found it you will forget that you were searching for it and begin searching again for something else, because in the end it wasn't about the bed, it was about the journey, the countless happy chance discoveries and finds you made along the way.
It's a philosophy...