I am an adult. I live in a pretty urbanized part of the world. The upshot of this is that at any point, day or night, I can buy ice cream. There are very few barriers to me doing so.
Therefore, it shouldn’t be special when the ice cream truck rolls by. This shouldn’t signify anything. I can get ice cream any time.
But of course, it does.
Some of this is nostalgia, sure. But my kids have never known a time when they couldn’t also get ice cream whenever they wanted – the only barrier is my approval. But the chimes still make their hearts swell.
To some extent, I think there’s value in taking joyous moments and nesting them outside our direct control. Scarcity and unpredictability can create a sort of joy that an on-demand existence cannot. The ordinary cannot, by definition, be extraordinary.
The Opportunity Machine 