On Liking Things (crucibles, for example)
These are some of the crucibles I used during our work with aluminum. They are cans, tomato cans, I believe. One of them is wrapped in ceramic fibre. I went to throw them out the other day because I'll need new crucibles for bronze and these won't work, but to my surprise, I found it was hard to do. So strange. As I picked them up, I thought they looked rather beautiful in their grey-black way, and I felt a kind of affection for them. My trusty crucibles! They held up, they did the job, they were reliable, convenient, good companions doing their part... Companions? There I was, feeling a kind of affection for a few, charred tin cans. And I thought, "What a strange thing - to feel affection for things ." Now of course, we feel attached to objects all the time, it's not at all a rare phenomenon. Quite the opposite! We love certain items of clothing, our phones, our bikes, a pair of shoes, a favourite spoon or mug, and so on. And so on. And so on. We get very att