I woke up in a sweat, which is the usual consequence of the hot flashes that hit me at night, like lightning rolling across the hills. However, this arousal seemed more the fault of a dream, where I gave some menacing street people some money, only to discover later that they found my home and further ripped me off. I know this scene came from yesterday when I saw an apparently prosperous man stop and give another man who was sitting on the sidewalk, some money and engage in a conversation. I wondered why I, passing the same sidewalk sitter, had not done the same. Overhearing the two talking, as I unlocked my bicycle, I heard a scrap of information about the charity recipient, that he was trying to get a visa so he could work, and my sympathy moved towards him. So he was not a street person by avocation, only in governmental limbo, trying the best he could. This was immediately replaced by the thought that he was probably lying.
What is it that makes us simultaneously want to connect with others and stand in suspicious judgment over them? My guess is that we are all in a state of insecurity, perhaps a remnant of our animal days where we could be attacked at any moment by a saber tooth tiger. This feeling is often triggered by situations where money is exchanged for something we want. Earlier this same day I bought two expensive objects. First, a fancy raincoat, to replace one that had gone missing after twenty years of service. The second was a framed photograph I saw as we toured neighborhood homes in an "Art Walk." The coat I undoubtedly will use over and over in this rainy climate, but I realized my decision to purchase this item was determined entirely by the endorsement given by the helpful salesman, who said he owned this very model and loved it. Getting it home, I still am pleased with it, but I feel I might have been told what I want to hear, a time honored technique of retail sales. What I don't understand is why it works so well. Am I so desperate to ally with a complete stranger that I would put down hard earned money to show approval and agreement?
The second purchase was certainly of no use at all, yet I felt drawn by its beauty and felt desire to have it for my own. Is this the same covetous nature that caused us to extirpate the Indians from the US, and now the seal lions who dare to take salmon we might otherwise catch and eat? Of course I paid money for this item, yet somehow, as soon as I got it home, I was disappointed with it, proof of the folly of all shopping. The potential to buy a piece of happiness is never fulfilled. The real question is why, in the face of multiple lessons do we never learn?
I think it is because money is a magic system we have created to trick us into feeling good. When we have extra cash, we look around for how to trade it for stuff to induce a positive emotion. This transaction always ends up inferior to the truer ways of feeling good; the ones that involve personal effort or mastery or risk. For the last ten days or so I have been smitten by a new website where you post one photograph taken each day, with room to name and explain your choice. It has been a fun challenge to go out and take photos every day and pick one that you want to share with the unknown masses. I discovered I do not have the chops to produce good photos on demand. My success with photography comes with beautiful places I happen into, not because I have an eye for the shot. And certainly I do not have the patience to tune a photograph into its best version. Perhaps I was just acknowledging my limits in buying a picture from a person who makes a living with a camera.
It is interesting that the word "stuff" means both an essential essence and unclassifiable debris of possession. Contrast "We are such stuff as dreams are made on," from Shakespeare, and the recent newspaper headline: "Piles of stuff complicated Southeast Portland housefire." I guess we keep hoping to buy the former, but end up with the latter.
