These are two different watches and there are many people who would exert a good deal of effort telling you why that matters.

I’m sure I’m not alone in this feeling of significant insignificance, being so entrenched in a hobby that is so painfully unimportant no matter how you spin it. Watches? Mechanical watches? You can’t be serious. Yet it’s so serious — too serious. It’s an enormous part of my life after my family and friends (many of whom are watch enthusiasts or fast becoming so thanks to my evil machinations). Even though I take it seriously, I have to constantly remind myself not to take it too seriously. This is a hobby even for those who’ve made watches a career. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve responded to someone’s enthusiast-based critique of a watch with, “Sure, but we’re a small sliver of the market,” or commented on a debate that’s gone on a bit long with, “Well, let’s not forget this is all a bit silly — they’re just watches.” But I’m realizing that it isn’t silly, precisely because it is silly.

Crossing the threshold into the watch hobby (and many other hobbies) requires the acknowledgment, tacit or otherwise, that watches have been obsolesced by innumerable devices that are more accurate and, in many cases, more affordable. Watches are an expensive anachronism that none of us need. How can these things we cherish and obsess over be simultaneously superfluous and so important? It all rests on that initial acknowledgment: Their importance is derived and validated by the acknowledgment that they are not important.

Ultra-thin, ultra-absurd, and entirely important.

By accepting that watches are not important, and stepping through that threshold, the framework is built within which we can have serious conversations and treat them as important, without feeling foolish. That is, in-group topics and arguments — power reserve, “true GMTs,” affordability, etc. — are rational and reasonable no matter how trivial they may be outside of the group. It’s the same precept, like it or not, that validates the complaints of the super-wealthy amongst themselves, and more insidiously, that enables and reinforces extreme ideologies.

Sometimes we all need to be reminded to not take things too seriously, but that’s true of everything. When it comes to watches, we can and should treat them as serious, have real debates and strong opinions, and everything that goes with it. The next time someone tries to tell you it’s all a bit silly, feel free to show them the door. We don’t need to be reminded of the inanity of the hobby; we all get it. For my part, I’m done reminding myself and others the hobby is fundamentally absurd because, once you’re in it, it’s not.