If wishes were horses
beggars would ride
If turnips were watches
I'd wear one by my side
And if ifs and ands
were pots and pans
there'd be no work for tinkers!
As I worked through remembering all the words and recalling how old I was when I scanned this poem in the big Mother Goose book we had, as well as how much my little brain puzzled over what a tinker was and how watches were worn at the side, I also started thinking about how credit cards have become our wishes and turnips. The nursery ryhme doesn't cover what happens when the horses and watches turn back into wishes and turnips. Based on the economic state of things the last few years, it's not pretty.Credit and overconsumption of goods could also contribute to why we buy new sets of pots and pans instead of waiting for the tinker to come through town and mend the ones we have. I won't make the case that waiting around for a scruffy old man to appear so you could use your favorite pot again is ideal, or that the poetry of a simpler rhythm of life makes up for the inconvenience of not being able to make enough soup at one go (though, unreasonably, I do think that's the case).
But the pursuit of ideals in the area of acquistion has a way of bending back on itself for the majority of us. As we strive to fill up our lives with the perfections the marketplace presents us we easily lose our grip on the reality of bank account balances and future needs. We begin to believe the dream is the reality and spend accordingly. The ignorant and the learned both do it, the poor and the wealthy. We all shamble around with our sets of turnips, taking joy in the present illusion and choosing not to investigate how or why the vegetables turned to watches.
