"Throw away"
A few years ago (1996) when I was in Namibia on a specimen aquisition holiday, we camped out at the foot of the
Goboboseb mountain / hill for 3 days.
This was fun, if you call being sandblasted, while you're digging for quartz specimens fun.
On the day we arrived there we browsed over some discarded digging sites.
At one of these places I found this little half a calcite geode,containing some quartz crystals,
lying there loose on top of a rock.
It had been left behind because the 1 cm crystals on this specimen were well below the average crystal size for this locality.
There was this little nothing: No rich amethyst color, no hint of smoky quartz,
no COČ bubbles, no ravishing lepidochrocite inclusions, just a bit of flaky red hematite covering on some of the crystals.
But I just felt this urge to pick it up and give it a good loving home. Poor abandoned stray.
As I picked it up, the calcite cup came apart. How could I be so careless?
Contemplating after this mishap if I should still take it home, I saw that
this breaking apart left me with a beautifully trimmed absolutely sexy "paint me" specimen.
I fell in love with this little "nothing".
I vowed that if I got this little one home in one piece without it coming apart any further,
I was going to make a painting of this little specimen that would show to everyone that
a little "throw away" could be just as beautiful as a world class specimen.
Afterwards as I thought about it, I realized that no collector should ever be intimidated into thinking
that the price tag on a specimen should determine how happy you can be owning it.
After all, you should be collecting for your own pleasure.
So if you collect world class specimens,enjoy it;
If you collect damaged and chipped little "have seen better days specimens", enjoy it.
Don't let anyone judge you or rob you of your pleasure.
The same goes for human beings:
Don't ever look down on another human, for that throw away could just be that gem of a human being that you always wanted to meet.
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