Fix-It, Familiarity, and Fondness

We grow attached to things, particularly when they tell the rest of the world something about ourselves that we feel good about.  So, it is not surprising that when items that play a particular powerful role in our lives are damaged, we need to repair them so that they can continue to do their part to make us feel good.

Rosalind Jana (“The Japanese Craft That Helps Us Heal,” https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20220822-why-we-are-drawn-to-mending-things ) reports, for example,  on “the BBC’s show The Repair Shop . . . a team of talented craftspeople come together to restore family heirlooms. . . . this is a programme about the known value already embedded in objects. Whether it’s a rocking horse with a dead husband’s signature hidden beneath the saddle or a battered Louis Vuitton trunk that belonged to a globe-trotting great-grandfather, the subsequent restorations become emotional because they prolong the existence of something that is already so cherished. Repair often feels healing because it is a moment of redemption. . . . The language of repair is one of great metaphoric significance: mending, fixing, restoring, rebuilding, piecing together. All are words we use for the objects we surround ourselves with, but also ones we apply to ourselves. We take solace in the idea that few things are truly beyond salvage.”