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Give me love, give me sex, give me money.
Mar. 23rd, 2005 07:05 pmThere's a new ongoing segment in The Raybear Show, which I call "If I Had $1,000 (and couldn't spend it on bills)". It's for detailing small-ticket items I currently desire that seems like big-ticket items when $1,000 is essentially how much I live on every month.
The list currently includes:
a vacuum cleaner
a professional massage
these new silicone anal beads at Early2Bed
The Collected Poems of Frank O'Hara
and strangely enough a PSP, the new handheld playstation. Even though I don't really play video games that often and don't really need further distractions from work. I won't be buying one anytime soon for real. But I might enter a contest to win one for free. It's just....I like tiny things.
I was 12 or 13 when the GameBoy first came out and it retailed at $89.99 or so (probably the equivalent of the $250 the PSP retails for). I really wanted it, but my parents were generally of the "save up your allowance and work money for things unless it's your birthday or christmas". And even when it was a holiday, those big ticket items were generally limited to luxury items that my parents would deem worthy of support, like a stereo or a guitar. But not video games. We had an Atari 2600 when that came out, but nothing after that.
So I saved up my babysitting money and some allowance and I went to the PX with my mom (for those civilians, the PX is the store on the army base that's like a department store/wal-mart) and bought myself a GameBoy. Because I wanted it. It made me happy. I loved Tetris. I think I bought Super Mario World too. I think my mom maybe slipped me 10 bucks to cover the difference? But maybe not. MAybe it was all my money.
When I got home, my father flipped out. He was (is?) an avid golfer and during the summer months he'd generally come home and change then go out to the driving range or to play 9 holes since it didn't get dark until late. He yelled at me for awhile then I remember him storming out and getting in the car to go play golf. The last thing he yelled was "you might as well have taken that money and flushed it down the toilet!!" I turned back to my gameboy and played, feeling angry and humiliated and indignant.
Thinking back, I remember a general theme of my parents mandating a certain level of self-sufficieny in how my brother and I used our own money to pay for entertainment and luxury items, which is a good thing. But there was also lots of judgment about which items and what activities were done, I guess as a way of trying to encourage some sort of lesson in what's practical and useful? Mostly it just made me feel bad. Feel like I have to justify every purpose with a rational reason. I can't just want something. I don't just deserve something. The result of these lessons is now, I will purchase something I don't really need but want in the moment and the thrill of that freedom feels so good, because I don't have any judgment on me. I did this a lot more at the end of college and right after, a way of asserting independence through consumerism that really just resulted in me having a credit card debt that followed me around for years. Nowadays, between getting older and living on a budget, these moments of indulgence tend to surround small things like cola slurpies or something at a thrift store.
But I'm still often left with this feeling that I'm not allowed to want something, that certain wants are bad and should be judged. Now granted, I'm obviously studying dharma that says all wanting, all desires cause suffering. But even that has no judgment. It's just a fact. And it's acknowledged that we all do it all the time and it's what makes us human. So it's the same struggle.
Last fall, right before getting chest surgery, I was talking to my therapist about debating about telling my parents about going to San Fran (I still haven't told them, actually -- they have no idea I had surgery). I talked about how I was sure it was what I wanted, I felt confident, I had a list of practical reasons why I needed and wanted it, how I could present the case to my parents, and my therapist stopped me and said, "why isn't it just enough to want it? You're allowed to want it and get it. That's enough of a reason."
Don't worry, I'm not using that reasoning to buy a PSP. But maybe a massage.
The list currently includes:
a vacuum cleaner
a professional massage
these new silicone anal beads at Early2Bed
The Collected Poems of Frank O'Hara
and strangely enough a PSP, the new handheld playstation. Even though I don't really play video games that often and don't really need further distractions from work. I won't be buying one anytime soon for real. But I might enter a contest to win one for free. It's just....I like tiny things.
I was 12 or 13 when the GameBoy first came out and it retailed at $89.99 or so (probably the equivalent of the $250 the PSP retails for). I really wanted it, but my parents were generally of the "save up your allowance and work money for things unless it's your birthday or christmas". And even when it was a holiday, those big ticket items were generally limited to luxury items that my parents would deem worthy of support, like a stereo or a guitar. But not video games. We had an Atari 2600 when that came out, but nothing after that.
So I saved up my babysitting money and some allowance and I went to the PX with my mom (for those civilians, the PX is the store on the army base that's like a department store/wal-mart) and bought myself a GameBoy. Because I wanted it. It made me happy. I loved Tetris. I think I bought Super Mario World too. I think my mom maybe slipped me 10 bucks to cover the difference? But maybe not. MAybe it was all my money.
When I got home, my father flipped out. He was (is?) an avid golfer and during the summer months he'd generally come home and change then go out to the driving range or to play 9 holes since it didn't get dark until late. He yelled at me for awhile then I remember him storming out and getting in the car to go play golf. The last thing he yelled was "you might as well have taken that money and flushed it down the toilet!!" I turned back to my gameboy and played, feeling angry and humiliated and indignant.
Thinking back, I remember a general theme of my parents mandating a certain level of self-sufficieny in how my brother and I used our own money to pay for entertainment and luxury items, which is a good thing. But there was also lots of judgment about which items and what activities were done, I guess as a way of trying to encourage some sort of lesson in what's practical and useful? Mostly it just made me feel bad. Feel like I have to justify every purpose with a rational reason. I can't just want something. I don't just deserve something. The result of these lessons is now, I will purchase something I don't really need but want in the moment and the thrill of that freedom feels so good, because I don't have any judgment on me. I did this a lot more at the end of college and right after, a way of asserting independence through consumerism that really just resulted in me having a credit card debt that followed me around for years. Nowadays, between getting older and living on a budget, these moments of indulgence tend to surround small things like cola slurpies or something at a thrift store.
But I'm still often left with this feeling that I'm not allowed to want something, that certain wants are bad and should be judged. Now granted, I'm obviously studying dharma that says all wanting, all desires cause suffering. But even that has no judgment. It's just a fact. And it's acknowledged that we all do it all the time and it's what makes us human. So it's the same struggle.
Last fall, right before getting chest surgery, I was talking to my therapist about debating about telling my parents about going to San Fran (I still haven't told them, actually -- they have no idea I had surgery). I talked about how I was sure it was what I wanted, I felt confident, I had a list of practical reasons why I needed and wanted it, how I could present the case to my parents, and my therapist stopped me and said, "why isn't it just enough to want it? You're allowed to want it and get it. That's enough of a reason."
Don't worry, I'm not using that reasoning to buy a PSP. But maybe a massage.
