U-WANTIT

     "  I Love Beautiful Things" 

There I’ve said it phew! I feel like an alcoholic anonymous “I’m HPA and I love beautiful things” picture the scene in the film Shopaholic where she finally admits. That’s where the similarity ends though. Shopaholics spend compulsively beyond their means, whereas I would like to believe that loving beautiful things means: You have a discerning eye for the divinely, elegant, exquisite, delightful, dazzling…(oh! I could go on forever!),  which if you can afford it and you feel it compliments your present lifestyle, you act upon and if it doesn’t you simple admire for its charm and let it be….reluctantly.

You may wonder why I use the word confess? Well if you’re wondering it probably means that you like things, maybe even nice things, but you’re not all that particular. An imitation substitute of the same thing will do. If you truly luuuv…desire…yearn for beautiful things you’ll know exactly what I mean. People who express their love for beautiful things are often met with disapproval, because in most people’s psyche the word beautiful is often substituted with ‘material ‘ and the world frowns upon  that. The word material carries a lot of bad baggage. Firstly there’s the association with money, (could we get any more material?), and money being the root of all evil stuff, and then there’s the seven deadly sins, greed, lust et al, all attitudes that underline sin. 

I remember when I was younger, my father telling me once that I was greedy. Something which I admit at the time I found quite startling. I don’t think I’m in the least greedy. Why did he say so? Because I had started a small sewing operation in the boys quarters of our house and I wanted to buy a little generator and when I asked him for the money he gave me one of those  ‘let’s discuss this some other time’ kind of answers. (On hindsight I think it was his way of making me abandon the project). 

Anyway when all attempts to bring up the subject were met with more foot dragging I raided my savings and went ahead and bought the generator. He was incensed. I wasn’t remorseful in the least because even at that young age (I was about 21 and in Law school) I was somehow able to fathom (I don’t know how), that his noncommittal behavior and labeling me greedy was a form of exerting control.   I’ve since learnt, in life, people always want you to wait… and wait…and wait…And live at the level of their own aspirations and expectations of life. Disapproval is a form of control.

Now add to the mix coming from a developing country. Liking beautiful things appears to make one shallow and heartless in the face of mass poverty hunger and illiteracy. ‘Doc’ (my husband) the most unmaterialistic person in the world was accosted by an irate Englishman in McDonalds Marble Arch (London, England). As he was about to take a large hungry chomp into his burger, this old man, seated at the next table, his face red with indignation, jabbed his finger at him and fumed,

 

“You are here eating hamburgers, meanwhile your people are starving in Africa!” 

You can imagine the shock. I had to laugh when he told me the story. This troubled him for a while but he eventually got over it realizing just as I had come to realize, that having fun or liking beautiful things does not mean you don’t have compassion or that you are in dereliction of your duty towards your fellow man.  One can work towards uplifting humanity in many ways. For example many of the great works of art and architecture  would not be with us today If they had not been commissioned by those who possessed some sort of aesthetic sensibility, if not we can be assured that the ceilings of the Cistern Chapel would have probably been painted with a  roller! (or whatever was the equivalent at that time).

Beautiful things are commissioned and created by people discontented with the hum drum of ordinary everyday existence, people who seek  something fresh, something new that can stimulate the senses.. .and make life which is supposed to be nasty, brutish and short, infinitely more pleasurable. When people desire, admire and buy things, don’t look upon on them with disdain as wastrels or feckless individuals. They are vtal to the economy! They make it possible for industries to grow, craftsmen to expand boundaries and all of us to experience new and wonderful possibilities, while creating jobs for many people. If nobody creates and nobody buys anything, then nobody will have anything!