My video production is on hold because I find myself interrogating my place in the watch world. I have little appetite for another “State of the Collection” video. That genre has become the YouTube equivalent of a sitcom reunion special: everyone knows the script before the opening credits roll. Likewise, I am convinced I have exhausted the lexicon of watch addiction. I have dissected acquisition syndrome, rationalization, buyer’s remorse, dopamine hits, grail watches, collection pruning, and every psychological contortion a watch enthusiast performs while pretending another purchase is somehow “different this time.” At some point, the commentary begins recycling itself, and I have no desire to become an echo of my former self.
The irony is that none of this means I love watches any less. They remain as captivating—and as capable of hijacking my imagination—as they were twenty years ago. Two pieces continue to haunt me. The first is the Grand Seiko SBGP009, whose champagne-silver dial possesses the quiet authority of vintage elegance while its quartz movement drifts no more than ten seconds in an entire year. The second is the Orient Star M42 Diver 1964 Recreation (RE-AU0503N), a watch that somehow manages to look both nostalgic and purposeful without descending into retro cosplay. My greatest misfortune is that neither watch is outrageously expensive. The Grand Seiko costs only about three thousand dollars, and the Orient Star about one thousand. I almost wish they were twice as expensive. Overpriced luxury has an odd virtue: it occasionally protects us from ourselves.
Meanwhile, most of my creative energy has migrated to my blog. There I can pursue ideas that would suffocate inside a fifteen-minute YouTube video. I can move from watches to literature, from moral philosophy to true crime, from AI to theology without asking whether the algorithm will punish me for changing lanes. The writing feels richer, stranger, and ultimately more meaningful. Unfortunately, blogs occupy the cultural equivalent of a deserted side street while YouTube resembles Times Square. One offers freedom without an audience; the other offers an audience that constantly demands the familiar. Whether I can remain content scribbling thoughtful essays into relative obscurity is a question I have not yet answered.
One conclusion, however, no longer requires interrogation. I am an incurable watch enthusiast. There is no treatment, no twelve-step program, no miraculous cure. I have accepted that reality. My task is not to extinguish the fascination but to discipline it. I must keep reminding myself that admiring a watch is not the same thing as needing to own it. Beauty can be appreciated without becoming another possession. In fact, the older I become, the more I suspect that an overcrowded collection diminishes rather than enriches the experience, spreading affection so thinly that no single watch receives the attention it deserves. Perhaps the highest form of collecting is learning that appreciation sometimes reaches its fullest expression the moment you decide to walk away.
Happy Fourth, everyone.
Cinemorphosis 
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