Saturday 10 January 2009

I Want (for) Too Many Things

I think the downside of being surrounded by all the signs and symbols all the time, is that you become over stimulated and this creates a need, a want. I never decided the difference between the two. At the moment I want (for), in no particular order:

Muji dogtooth black & white wool blanket
Paul Smith shirt, black with coins printed over it
The Hat
Clarks black 80s-but-comfy shoes
Muji recycled cotton bedsheets
Laura Mercier foundations
Peter Jensen Hawaiian print house coat
Yellow velvet cushion from Habitat
Balaclava from B Store
Black bike jacket and various parts

This discounts things I have put out of my head because they are out of my means price-wise, such as a people-print shirt for £300. This means that the things I haven't discounted, the things listed above, are things I will potentially succumb to.

When I want for things, I'm not a consumer. I want the shapes colours ideas that have come out of someone's head, into the world, that dance around with ideas in my head of what I think is breathtaking, and skip off into the sunset together. It's not transient, disposable, shallow, money. It's an ideology of what I believe in, things that make me tick, Portable Property of the most exciting kind. Look world, these are the things that I believe in! Aren't things amazing! Good & True, Good & True, skipping off into the sunset together! A happy ever after, an ideology. But will the want ever be satiated, when will the lights of the signs go off. They won't, we are bombarded, and I enjoy it.

One Hundred Pounds For A Hat. This may sound ridiculous, depends how you place it. I spend a hundred pounds on a hat. I used to spend £40 on one night on the town, once or more a month. Nothing remaining but experience and scant alcohol-doused memories. People do this. If they do that why can't I get the hat without feeling ridiculous. £40 a month gym membership. £20 a week smoking habit. I don't do that. Nice bottle of wine or two every week. Don't do that. Vices. Don't have them. Bad habits, failings, flaws. They waste time & money and leave no trace. If objects are my only vice then that's not a bad thing. If they can live on for years, five years and counting, their value is immense. It becomes difficult to draw a line, who could store so many things they loved and collected, when would their worth expend, my tastes veer, and would that turn me back into a dirty consumer. Two objects a month is 24 in a year, 24 new things. Clothes at least wear out and come with their own lifespan. Holes, bobbles, mistaken shrinkage, they exist to expend.

"The original notion of 'lack" was early extended to 'need,' and from this developed the sense [desire]." (Oxford American Dictionaries)

1 comment:

Gorilla Bananas said...

Well you sound pretty starstruck to me. Is it Nigel Kennedy? Nigel Mansell? Nigel the Squirrel-hunter?