Re: Why don't people take care of thier instruments?
There is something about a solid-color gloss finish on a guitar that seems to take a ding or a chip better than, say, a translucent finish like a burst. The solid color (usually black, in my case) is this perfect, uninterrupted field of unnatural, unearthly shine, like a Chiclet, over top of a piece of wood. A tree. Something porous and imperfect and full of natural grain and things not programmed into a CNC machine or hand-shaped just so. This is probably my own particular kink, but sometimes I think the wood is singing, screaming, to get out, and when I see that little paint chip that goes just down to the wood, I feel like it's succeeding. I don't do this stuff on purpose to my guitars, but I don't feel bad when it happens despite what I consider reasonable precautions.
On the other hand, I like the translucent finishes to stay nice, and so far they have. I take a little more care with them, because for me the aesthetic downside would be a bummer. I think the finish, and the wood grain you can see through it, are already an imperfect, beautiful thing that takes on a slightly random perfection that would be disrupted by a ding or a chip -- in a way that I wouldn't like.
Cars, TV's, computers -- there's no natural material in those, I guess, so no tree spirits trying to get out. No subtle, uncalculated texture in the molded plastic bezel on my plasma TV, caused by years of growing in the soil and wind and rain.
Just how I see it in my own deranged, quasi-artistic perspective.
