From Word To Word

I had an apple turnover this morning, handmade from local ingredients and still warm from the oven.

I can, of course, buy an apple turnover almost anytime and almost anywhere.  There is a cafe or a doughnut shop or a grocery store or a supermarket within a few minutes walk of any point in the city, many of them open early and late, some open almost every hour of the year.  If this does not suffice, I can even order groceries to be delivered right to my house.  I never have to be without an apple turnover if I do not want to be.

If I want to buy an apple turnover that is made from local apples, however, and if I want the pastry to be handmade, and if I want to eat it when it is still warm, I cannot choose the time and the place.  I need to be at my local bakery just as it opens on Monday and Thursday mornings.  No other time or place will do.

This phenomenon is true in almost every case: quality demands its time and its place.  If I want a quality butcher who will sell me hormone free cuts of meat to order, I will have to wait until the next time an animal is slaughtered, maybe even until the next season that an animal should be slaughtered.  If I want to buy quality local organic produce, I will have to wait for it to come in its season and make do without the things that simply will not grow in my climate.

The demand that things be here and now, that time be money, that success be about location, location, location: these things are the enemy of quality.  To find quality, I must always look for it in its own time and its own place.  No other time and place will do.