Losing interest in things you once loved...when is it depression and when is it growth?
Writing instruments are a passion in my life. Always have been. And, for the last four years I have attended the Los Angeles International Pen Show. It's a pretty big event with lots of retailers and traders that come to show off their wares. Now, if I were to be completely honest, the whole thing scares the bejesus out of me. It's a banquet room smashed full of pens and people. I get a little (okay, a lot) anxious in rooms full of people and very little space to move about. I've braved it for four years...even dragged my sister and Mother along for the experience (they could care less about pens, but support me) and had a good time...but in thinking about returning in February 2011, my desire is gone.
I haven't purchased a pen in months. That's pretty unusual for me. There are a few inks I would love to own, but I haven't bought those either.
So...I guess the question for me is: Is my lack of desire in things regarding a passion in my life the result of some new depression or is it a result of a growth process wherein I have learned that I do not need more or the latest and greatest to be satisfied?
More and more, since the death of my Uncle John, I have been thinking about "stuff". The man had at least two of everything ever made! (That's nearing hyperbole, but not quite there...) I look around me and think: Why do I own so much junk? My Mother says it's engrained in me to be a pack-rat from my father's side. And, perhaps it is...all but one of my father's siblings are truly pack-rats. Now, pens are not junk by any means...not to me, anyway...but I do not need all of the pens in the world. I do not need all of the inks in the world.
For me, it's pens and books. For others I know it's clothes or jewelry or cars or purses or shoes or whatever else the Jones' have. What is it in us that wants everything? Why do we feel entitled to have that everything? When is the line of enough crossed? Is it security? Why do things make us feel secure? I've heard tales of people having lived through the Great Depression, having nothing but holey shoes and the tattered clothes on their backs, that now possess rooms and rooms of items they never use...but they possess them. Do those items really make them feel secure?
As I look around me, I find insecurity in all of my stuff. I find an attempt to bury myself in things. I find wastefulness. I find myself yelling, "No more stuff!"
Perhaps I don't want to go to the pen show because I don't need to be enticed to buy more pens and ink. I don't need to be an impulse buyer anymore. Perhaps I should take Leo Babauta's (http://www.zenhabits.net/) advice and have a running 30 Day List. If I see something I want that is not necessary to my existence, i.e. a new pen, I will put it on a 30 Day List in my planner with the date. If, after 30 days have passed, I still really want the item, I will give myself leave to purchase it.
I think I'll chalk this up to growth...
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