(no subject)

[somanyteeth.livejournal.com]

What makes diamonds so inexplicably prepossessing?

Comments

[questionorigin.livejournal.com]

They're shiny, and we have been conditioned by society from an early age to equate diamonds with love, love with happiness, and so diamonds must mean happiness.

[somanyteeth.livejournal.com]

Mm. I thought something along the same lines. But most people wouldn't admit that, would they? Well -- maybe the 'they're shiny' bit.

[questionorigin.livejournal.com]

They'd probably deny it with all they had. Except for the shiny bit.

[somanyteeth.livejournal.com]

Which is just as well. People do put value in the silliest things sometimes.

[questionorigin.livejournal.com]

Absolutely. The things people hold onto because of sentimentality can be the most trivial knickknacks.

[somanyteeth.livejournal.com]

That's what they are most of the time, from what I've seen.

[questionorigin.livejournal.com]

And yet, to the person in question, they're more valuable than anything. It's pitiful.

[isdisarming.livejournal.com]

Shiny. De Beers Diamond Cartel.

[somanyteeth.livejournal.com]

Both factors that contribute to the attraction, I'm sure. Whether people like it or not.

[isdisarming.livejournal.com]

De Beers came out with a big campaign after one of the great wars, selling the idea that love comes from a box and from within that box, a shiny stone.

I buy it.

[somanyteeth.livejournal.com]

*shrugs* Why not. Probably just as likely to come out of a rock as anywhere else, no?

[isdisarming.livejournal.com]

As long as it's shiny. I wanted to work for De Beers when I was little.

[somanyteeth.livejournal.com]

That does seem to be an interesting evolutionary quirk the species hasn't yet managed to shake. If you want to blame genetics for that perverse little attraction. Just because you wanted to work with the diamonds?

[mutablepolitics.livejournal.com]

People are easily led by advertisements and the lies of how rare something rather common can be.

[somanyteeth.livejournal.com]

Goodness, that does sound about the short and long of it.

[mutablepolitics.livejournal.com]

They rarely note what truly is rare. Why the interest in diamonds?

[somanyteeth.livejournal.com]

Which can make it all the rarer for those who can recognize it when they see it. Just thinking aloud.

[mutablepolitics.livejournal.com]

Of course we're no longer speaking merely diamonds but rather anything that has a rarity that can not be measured, nor faked such as it is with the diamond industry.

[somanyteeth.livejournal.com]

Hm. I'm beginning to doubt there even is such a thing any more. Seems like everything can be mass-produced with enough ingenuity.

[cache-of-spark.livejournal.com]

Diamonds are one of the few precious materials where the worth is readily apparent, even outside of a society's notions of value. Being the hardest naturally occurring substance on earth, it can be used for something impressive, other than being just twinkling away in a display case.

*shrugs and smiles crookedly* Though, I'm sure most people aren't thinking of the utilitarian hardware applications when diamonds are brought up.

[somanyteeth.livejournal.com]

I should think not. No girl ever opens a little velvet box hoping to find a drillbit.

[cache-of-spark.livejournal.com]

*snickers* Oh, I don't know. I'm sure there's some little tinkerer out there who would love the idea, even if most wouldn't.

Maybe if it was a shiny pendant that doubled as a drillbit. Best of all worlds.

[somanyteeth.livejournal.com]

Sounds like she'd be quite a girl.

But wouldn't it be terrible if you accidentally got it confused with your others?

[cache-of-spark.livejournal.com]

Undoubtedly.

Before or after the velvet box presentation? If beforehand, I just can't help but think of the amusing comedy of errors that would ensue, so it's hard to think of it as terrible.

[somanyteeth.livejournal.com]

Either, or. But I think so long as you involve two set of identical twins, anything could be made hilarious.