not wanting = having
The aphorism “Not wanting something is as good as having it” has been echoing in my brain since encountering it in a recent Paco de Leon newsletter (highly recommend if you want approachable expert personal finance advice).
How I interpret it: freeing yourself from the desire of possessing something you don’t need is as good as possessing something you really love. Or: the confidence to resist consumerism feels as good as actually buying & owning something.
With the holiday season upon us, and Ozempic & plastic surgery mods more visible in pop-culture than ever, coveting sparkly shiny new things (or buy them for others) can easily become (excuse the pun) all-consuming. With this pithy expression top of mind, I’ve found real freedom in resisting the monkey-brain impulse to buy influencer-shilled products, or even grocery store end-cap “luxury“ items, because the quick dopamine hit fades fast, and then what?
Even as an evangelist of the little treat lifestyle, pausing to consider if I really need something, then deciding “no thank you, I’m good actually” has brought a newfound level of mindfulness to spending. And I now have extra funds that I can send to my local food bank & community food drives, a far worthier cause than skin care and concert outfits (find your neighborhood food bank here).
Anyways, I am hard at work on querying my finished manuscript and plotting out my next one, so that’s all I got today. Hope you all are riding out the seasonal transition into the Big Dark as well as you can.
good things on the internet
currently reading
Didion & Babitz by Lili Anolik: Unlearning things I thought I knew about Joan Didion, and learning all new things I never knew about Eve Babitz, with a bonus deep dive into the 1970s LA Franklin Avenue scene. I’m a sucker for a premise that starts with an old cardboard box of celebrity correspondence.
A House with Good Bones by T. Kingfisher: My latest foray in the Southern Gothic genre featuring a voice-y entomologist narrator.
“Lawrence confessed that, just before she left the house, her too-small mouth guard had got stuck in her mouth. “Can you imagine?” she said. “After ten years of being, like, ‘I used to be folksy, but everyone thought everything was a shtick,’ then I show up for my first day of this, like”—she did a Farrelly-brothers-style impression of clumsy, mouth-guard-wearing Jen. “I was, like, I will do anything to prevent this from happening. It would be like if I tripped and fell on my way into the room.””
this week’s jam
A 2022 midwest emo-esque bop about how masculinity limits men from expressing their love & affection for & to their male friends? say less
photo of my cats
I always try to envision what I would want in my monk's cell... A bed, some books, a window, and a chair.