Saying "farewell" to inanimate objects.

I've seen a number of threads lately about aircraft being decommissioned and made obsolete by newer technology. I guess I am getting cheesed off at how some of these threads are being represented; by saying "goodbye/farewell" to a piece of technology.
It's an object, not a person. It didn't do anything, in fact it requires people to perform it's function.
It's one thing to be nostalgic about the end of an era, we've all had those moments: when you realized answering machines. or landline phones, tube televisions, or VHS tapes were no longer viable. I get it.
But to attribute some sort of human-like quality to a machine and saying goodbye to it seems ludicrous and a sign of rampant materialistic behavior. it's as ridiculous as Jimmy Stewart running though town in that famous holiday movie screaming "Merry Chrishtmash Movie Housh!!!"

So that's my rant. I feel better now.

a reply to: frostjon361

Technology is a reflection of the minds who created it, so in essence a reflection of us. It tells the story of humanity and a testament to our legacy. By bidding it fair well you are acknowledging humanity's strides and future accomplishments, it's ritualistic sure, but ritual is also a human trait. So while it may seem silly it has reason, I don't believe in God but I still celebrate Christmas I do not protest over the dinner prayer (this issue even worse for me, I can't tell someone I'm praying for them, when they are in strife, I have to give logical solutions to problems or share hope and concern) so as I feel these things are silly, I still am not lost on perspective for why they exist or even perhaps the usefulness. Cheers

a reply to: frostjon361

I get what you're saying, but I don't know that I'd consider it materialistic. Everybody has a couple of inanimate objects in their life that are favorites or go-tos. I have an HP 48GX calculator I bought as a freshman in college. A couple of years ago it finally gave up the ghost and would no longer even turn on. I don't so much think I mourned the loss of the calculator as I mourned the loss of familiarity and trust I'd formed with it. For 18 years, through college, an internship, a year of graduate school, and then 12 years of engineering, I kept that hp at my left hand all day, every work day. I switched to an hp49 I had been given as a gift when I took my PE exam. I'd never used it, never put batteries in it. Fired it up and it just wasn't the same, but after a year, as I was starting to get used to it finally, IT BROKE. Now on to an hp33 calculator and, honestly, I still miss my old 48GX everytime I pick up this new calculator. In fact, I still have the 48GX sitting in a pod under my monitor. I should throw it away, but I sometimes put batteries into it just to see if the power button will work again, magically, it never does.

When you say good-bye to someone electronically, you are saying it to an inanimate object (or does electricity give it life?). That person then says good-bye back to an inanimate object. You both know to end the conversation without having spoken to one another directly.

Weird.

a reply to: frostjon361

Ever hear the song "Chevy Van"?

Ooooh, the memories.

Nuff said.

a reply to: frostjon361

LOL - I used to feel the same way...well, still do, but I have a better understanding of people who feel differently now.

My husband has a weird affection for objects, many different kinds. He has been a collector of Checker Cabs for much of his life, and we've had a jet fighter in front of our house for about 17 years. He has a couple of old motorcycles too.

I like to have only things I need and not more, feeling they "weigh me down". He has boxes full of antique toys he will pull out and treat like they were sacred.

He tried to explain to me the attraction for the Checker, and how it has something to do with all the people, all the lives, that had sat in there during it's time in service. As if it retained these memories somehow.

He wrote and published a book on the history of the Checker, which I never bothered to read myself, then he wrote a book about his plane - on the history of that individual aircraft! He took the Bureau number he found on it (I think that's what it is called?) and researched for a coulple of years. Turned out his plane was one of the first Mig killers in Vietnam. He found pilots who drove it, they sent him copies of their log books on the days they flew that plane, and what happened.

He ended up making a lot of dear friends in that research, and collecting detail accounts of their lives and the adventures they'd had, the dangers they'd faced. He made several trips to the US to meet with them.

His book ended up being an amazing biography of a plane.... but ultimately, it is about the lives which moved through it. The object is a sum of those who manipulated it.

We are invited each year to their ball/reunions, and I have gotten to know these men and learn their stories, and each year there are more who come up with their log books in hand and want to be added in to a new edition. I have seen men cry as they thanked him for doing this - and talking about that plane with great attachment. Not that they felt anything for it before, but because his care for it, allowed it to speak to him about them - unsung heros.

I find it quite touching now, and I get it.
I still won't be holding on to any objects I don't need, but I don't complain about all the room he takes up with his stuff.

if something gets used enough people will get fond memory's of them even if they are only a piece of technology