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Monday, May 11, 2009

Why Do We Have To Want?

Why do we have to want??? That's a question that a step-grandmother I had for a brief time asked many years ago, as we scaled the escalator overlooking the expanse of stores at one of Michigan's largest malls.

Around the same time, a roommate asked me a similar question. Why couldn't I be happy with what I had, why did I always have to want more? Huh?!? It was an odd question. Because at the time I was in the first year of starting a career, eating Campbell's tomato soup for lunch (and noting each time the price increased by a few cents), living with all hand-me-down furniture, watching a hand-me-down b&w TV with only 4 clear channels and no this wasn't 1976 this was approx 1990-1991! Why WOULDN'T someone want more?

The thing is, now I do have so much more. I've been places in the world, I have nice furniture and nice clothes and a nice house and nice gardens (average car though, don't believe in putting tons of money into a depreciating thing that rusts), I got a taste for the finest softest chevre with sauvignon blanc ... and yet, I still want more. Want to see more places, want a stone farmhouse in Tuscany where I can plant more gardens, and eat even fresher cheese and the best wine without sulfites ...

I believe this is what propels me forward through the days, even if I don't get. It keeps me moving.

Sometimes given the opportunity, I don't take advantage ... I want but I don't get. Sometimes I forget about these fleeting wants. Other times, I wake up when it's too late, and see the picture in my mind of perfectly round polished turquoise beads, mostly green-blue with delicate brown marbling, all strung into a necklance sized for a petite neck, hung in a case among a jumble of Tibetan jewelry in the visual extravaganza that is Habeeb Mullick & Son, established in 1890 in Darjeeling, India. I picture how good it would look peeking out from under a linen shirt with jeans and these shoes:


Google gives the chance to make this fading image a reality. Consider this one, from an online shop of Tibetan jewelry:


Of course I could always call the nice shopkeeper from Habeeb Mullick & Son and say, "I just want one more thing ..."

So, why are we driven to want?

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