Sometimes (when it strikes me to contemplate the obvious) I find it intriguing how our actions and constructive creativity can generate value out of nothing — how a manufactured object, shaped by the human hand or by machines of human design, achieves a value to us which is higher than that of the raw material of which it is made. This enhanced value comes not from additional substance, but merely from the object’s crafted form.

Unless of course the object happens to be a New Venture Gear NV1500 5-speed transmission from a late model GM S-10 derivative.

Along with the transmission I hauled to a salvage yard the exhaust system aft of the catalytic converter (keeping that for now, for a .. “project”), the charcoal canister, driveshaft, fuel lines, clutch assembly minus flywheel, stock wheel and tire, and fuel tank, which have been taking up much needed room in my garage and adding to the daunting task of organizing the cluttered sty for the inevitable day when I can no longer roll the truck outside to work on it. A Silverado half full of parts and I trundled on in haste, as it was threatening rain.

After informing the owner of the yard about the parts’ origin, I was told that it was all worth more as scrap material than as auto parts, and so we proceeded to load it into another truck along with a bunch of other rusted, broken, gypsy-cursed or GM-manufactured parts to be taken to a crusher.

At any rate, the stuff is gone and I couldn’t be happier. Of course I didn’t get any money for any of it but after having the stuff on craigslist for a while with no takers, I’d long since freed myself of that delusion. So now I have the space I need, and I feel like those useless parts were a fair price to pay.

So in a way, I suppose I too have created value out of nothing, by crafting that nothing with my bare hands (and a small dolly cart) where it didn’t exist before. But I’ll need a lot more nothing in that garage before I’ll have enough to get anything done with both me and the truck inside.