For many people, about the only time in their lives in which they think about diamonds or jewelry is during the period leading up to their wedding day. Some may believe that it is just men for whom this lack of interest in diamond and jewelry is found, but this would be far too great a generalization. There are also many women who do not spend much time pondering on diamond jewelry. What tends to cause many people to turn their thoughts to jewelry and diamond is, as mentioned previously, an upcoming wedding situation. That wedding may be one’s own, a friend’s or a relative’s, but the wedding ceremony is often a catalyst for spurring interest in jewelry and diamond. This is a bit of a shame, because the fact is, the world of jewelry and diamond holds much more than serving as a marker for a wedding event.
When many of us look upon the diamond or jewelry industries we tend to see industries that offer little more than aesthetically pleasing and unnecessary adornments for the individual. At best, diamond jewelry is seen as pretty and a nice accompaniment for a wedding or engagement, at worst, diamond jewelry is seen as a huge, unnecessary expenditure of money, whether for a wedding or not, that serves to do nothing more than feed an inherent narcissism in the human psyche. Now, while even the worst view of diamond jewelry may offer up some creditable points, it is just as true that such points could be made for much of what humans spend their time, money and energies on.
Perhaps it would be a bit more clarifying to ask the question, is there any real need for most sports, arts, or even for most of the entertainment industry? Does anyone truly need another expensive car or do so many Americans truly need to have affordable air travel? Humans have survived for thousands of years without the need to fly to Europe to see the Louvre in Paris or to see London in the summertime. Those Americans who traveled out west to explore the new nation of the United States did not need SUVs or truck stops in order to discover the lands that became known as the western states of the US. In short, it is short sighted and demonstrative of shallow thinking to single out diamond jewelry as something fit only for the wedding ceremony and the time leading up to the wedding ceremony.
Essentially, humans do not necessarily find value in things based on the utility of that particular item. If this were true, humans would value water far higher than diamond jewelry, and would value the act of finding food, work or mating as far higher than the ceremony of the wedding. The fact is, however, we as a species give an extremely high value to such things as diamond jewelry, and such activities as the wedding. The reasons for this are not extremely easy to pinpoint, but we can speculate a bit on them.
We find a great deal of value in the wedding and in diamond jewelry due in part to the aesthetic appeal that we find in these things. A wedding is a ceremony in which family and friends gather to celebrate the joining of two people and their families into one larger unit. We make it a point in the wedding to make certain that everything and everybody is as beautiful as possible. We find the aesthetics of the entire event to be of a great value to our individual mental and emotional health. Seeing all of our friends and relatives acting with their best behavior and looking as good as they are likely to look brings to anyone who goes to a wedding a sense of warmth and security. We associate beauty with health, and so the wedding ceremony demonstrates the celebration of the health of our loved ones and ourselves.
Diamond jewelry also feeds the human need for aesthetically appealing sights in our lives. When one looks upon diamond jewelry, even those who have little interest in either diamond or jewelry cannot help but feel that the scintillating light that is given off and reflected by diamond and jewelry is extremely pleasing to the eye. The human brain is affected in a chemical sense by seeing things which it finds to be physically attractive, such as diamond jewelry, or the aforementioned wedding ceremony. In other words, human beings feel better and are given a greater sense of well being by seeing that which we find to be beautiful in some way, such as with diamond jewelry or the wedding ceremony.
Another reason beyond the aesthetic issue for why we place such a great value on the wedding ceremony or diamond jewelry can be found in the seeming rarity of these things. Now, one might be tempted to say that there is a wedding ceremony going on every day, and, that being the case, how can something that is obviously not rare be compared with such an item as diamond or diamond jewelry. With a little closer look, however, we can see that diamond jewelry is not as scarce as we think, while the wedding ceremony is far rarer than we give it credit for being.
While diamond might seem to be an extremely rare substance, it is, in fact, not as rare as many people believe it to be. Diamond itself is not that rare, as it is used for all kinds of industrial purposes, from record needles to sanding machinery. Diamond jewelry gains much of its value through the mining effort, the cutting, shaping and polishing of the diamond for jewelry and the actual skill that goes into the creating of diamond jewelry pieces.
On the other side of this, the wedding ceremony is, as stated above, rarer than most of us are aware of. Now, the actual wedding ceremony itself goes on every day. In fact, as you read this, there is a wedding ceremony going on somewhere in this world. The fact is, however, that there are only so many wedding ceremonies that go on which hold any meaning for us individually. That being the case, most of us will only ever go to somewhere between a handful to a dozen wedding ceremonies in our lifetimes. Even if one were to go to thirty wedding ceremonies in one’s life, which would be a high number for most of us, that would still amount to, at best, only two wedding ceremonies a year. Think about that in comparison to how often you go to the movies, watch sporting events, play sports with friends or even visit vacation spots.
Human beings often place value on things and events based on a seeming innate capriciousness in our nature. However, a closer look at two of those things and events, diamond jewelry and the wedding ceremony, and we can see that there are very good reasons for our attribution of such value to them. We do not assign great value to diamond jewelry simply because someone told us we should, nor do we give high value to the wedding ceremony due to our family telling us that things are just that way. We give diamond jewelry and the wedding ceremony such value because they return tremendous benefits to us as individuals and as a species. Diamond jewelry and the wedding ceremony give us some of the most intangible of benefits, the appreciation of what is the result of hard work, fine craftsmanship, effort, and the love and splendor of all that is beautiful.
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