My left wrist feels like it is encased in lead, not because of the physical weight of the metal-though 18-karat gold has a deceptive, oily gravity that clings to the skin-but because of the terrifying value it represents. I am currently navigating a crowded sticktail party, and every person here is a potential hazard. I see a woman in a sequined dress and my heart rate spikes; those sequins are little more than tiny, abrasive discs waiting to graze the polished bezel of my father’s Patek Philippe. I move my arm to my chest, a protective reflex that makes me look like I am having a mild cardiac event. In reality, I am just hyper-aware of the 8 millimeters of clearance between my sleeve and a passing waiter’s tray. This is the weight of a perfect object. We spend our lives striving to acquire these pinnacles of craftsmanship, believing that they will elevate our existence, only to find that the moment they are in our possession, we become their servants. We cease to be owners and become high-alert security guards for our own belongings.

The Submarine Cook’s Dilemma

I found myself staring at the same scuff on the floor for what felt like minutes, or perhaps it was just the same sentence in my head repeating itself: I shouldn’t have worn it, I shouldn’t have worn it. This is the specific neurosis of the masterpiece. When you own something that is irreplaceable, or even just difficult to maintain, the joy of its utility is often eclipsed by the anxiety of its preservation. It’s a peculiar form of psychological hostage-taking. You buy the finest glasses, the finest watch, the finest car, and then you spend 48 hours a week worrying about gravel, fingerprints, and UV degradation. It’s a specialized kind of stress that we pay for, a luxury-grade stress that makes every movement feel calculated and brittle.

Pierre V.K., a man I met while researching the psychological effects of confined spaces, knows this better than anyone. Pierre was a submarine cook for 28 years. He operated in a kitchen the size of a broom closet, 88 meters below the surface of the Atlantic. In that environment, everything is a masterpiece because everything is essential. If a specific valve fails or a specialized piece of cookware is damaged, there is no replacement coming for months. Pierre told me that for the first 8 years of his service, he lived in a state of constant, low-level panic. He would move through the galley with his elbows tucked in, his steps measured to the centimeter, terrified of bumping into the intricate machinery that kept 128 men breathing and fed. He lived in a world of perfect functionality where the cost of a mistake was absolute. He became so attuned to the dimensions of his environment that he could tell if a bulkhead had shifted by 8 millimeters just by the way his hip brushed against it.

This is the submarine cook’s dilemma applied to the civilian world of high-end objects. We are constantly navigating tight spaces-metaphorical and literal-and we are carrying things that cannot be easily fixed. We treat our objects as if they are fragile deities. I’ve seen men refuse to drive their vintage Ferraris because the humidity was at 58 percent instead of the preferred 48 percent. I’ve seen women carry their handbags as if they were live grenades, terrified that a stray drop of rain might leave a permanent ghost on the leather. We seek the perfect object to feel a sense of permanence in an ephemeral world, yet that very permanence becomes a burden because we, ourselves, are the most ephemeral part of the equation. We are the soft, clumsy, decaying elements in a room full of hardened steel and precious stones.

“

I remember once watching an artisan work on a set of frames. He spent 148 hours on a single bridge, polishing it until the gold looked less like metal and more like liquid sunlight. When I finally held the finished product, my first instinct wasn’t to put them on; it was to put them back in the box. I felt that I was too oily, too chaotic, too human for something so resolved.

This is the tragedy of the consumer. We believe that by purchasing perfection, we will absorb some of its stability. But instead, the perfection highlights our own instability. We look at the flawless surface of a LOTOS EYEWEAR piece and we see, quite literally, the reflection of our own trembling hands. We are the flaw in the system. The object is finished; we are still a work in progress, and we are terrified of contaminating the finished thing with our unfinished lives.

We are not owners; we are merely the friction that eventually wears the masterpiece down.

There is a subtle cruelty in the way we hoard beauty. We want the thing that will last forever, yet the very act of using it ensures it won’t. If you wear the watch, the gears will eventually wear. If you wear the glasses, the hinges will eventually loosen. If you drive the car, the engine will eventually tire. So we keep them in safes, in velvet-lined boxes, in climate-controlled garages. We kill the object’s purpose to preserve its form. It’s like keeping a bird in a cage so small it can’t fly, just so its feathers don’t get ruffled. We call this ‘care,’ but it is actually a form of fear. We are afraid of the passage of time, and we use these objects as anchors to hold us in place. We think that if the gold stays shiny, we aren’t getting older. But the gold is indifferent to us. It doesn’t care if it’s on a wrist or in a drawer. The burden is entirely ours.

The Partner Mentality

I think about that dent every time I feel the urge to hide my belongings from the world. We need to shift our perspective from that of a curator to that of a partner. An object only truly becomes ours when it bears the marks of our existence. A scratch on a watch isn’t a tragedy; it’s a record of a night spent laughing with friends. A slight softening of the leather on a case is a testament to the thousands of times it has protected what we value. We shouldn’t be striving for a life lived in a museum; we should be striving for a life lived in a workshop. The beauty of a high-end object isn’t its fragility; it’s its resilience. It is the fact that it was built to endure us.

“

I spent $888 once on a fountain pen that I was too scared to use for 18 months. It sat in a mahogany desk drawer, a silent reproach to my own cowardice. One day, I took it out and forced myself to write a grocery list with it. … By keeping it locked away, I wasn’t protecting it; I was insulting the person who made it. They made it to be an extension of a human thought.

So I have decided to let the doorframes do their worst. I will walk through the world with my arms at my sides, letting the sequins and the stone walls and the passing trays be what they are. If I scratch the gold, I will look at the mark and remember where I was when it happened. I will treat my possessions with the respect they deserve, which means I will actually allow them to fulfill their destiny. We are the temporary custodians of these objects, yes, but we are also the only ones who can give them a purpose. Without us, they are just expensive atoms arranged in a pleasing shape. With us, they are tools for living. And living is a messy, unpredictable, 108-percent-unfiltered process that no amount of velvet padding can truly contain.

As I leave the party, I catch my reflection in the window. The watch is there, glinting under the streetlights. It looks smaller than it did when I was obsessing over it. It looks like what it is: a beautiful tool for keeping track of a life that is moving far too fast to be spent worrying about scratches. Pierre V.K. is probably out there somewhere, sitting in a kitchen that isn’t underwater, cooking with pots that are covered in dents. I hope he’s using his best knives to cut the onions. I hope he’s not worried about the edge. Because at the end of the day, we aren’t remembered for how well we preserved our things. We are remembered for how well we used them to engage with the world. Is the weight of a perfect object heavy? Perhaps. But only if you refuse to let it carry its own weight. Once you accept that perfection is a starting point rather than a finish line, the burden starts to feel a lot more like a gift.