Sunday 6 June 2004

Pic of the day: Continuing our series of seductive poses ...

Waiting out the impulse

During the past week, I have "fallen in love" with a somewhat portable stereo, the Philips AZ2558. This class of sound machine is called "ghetto blaster", but we can only wish the ghetto will someday be such a place that this will fit in. It has a definite new century look, with plenty of speakers, round control areas and round readout with amber LCD. Most notably, it not only plays MP3 CDs right off the bat, but also comes with a USB cable to hook it up to any reasonably modern PC, as well as another cable to hook it up to dedicated games machines (PS2 and such, I believe ... I don't have that kind of gear since I don't have a TV.) Obviously we're talking Silicon Valley ghetto here, not inner city ghetto!

The machine has good specifications and a comfortable price, and as I said it is pretty and very much my type. I have refrained from buying it, however, because of my desire for it.

***

The desire to own a thing is a facet of greed, I believe, just like the desire to accumulate money is another facet of it. This eagerness to possess and take control can also be seen in some intimate relationships. I believe that it is wrong in all cases.

When I studied a little bit of law in my younger days, just to complement the economy studies with some perspective, we learned about analogy. An article of law could be used as an analogy in a similar case, when the fundamentals were similar enough. I found law (and especially tax law) to be kinda disgusting, but this concept has stayed with me.

The apostle Paul, who may not be as bad as you imagine, says something interesting in his first letter to Thessalonians. I'll render this in the NASB translation at first, as it is less wrong than the average: "For this is the will of God, your sanctification; that is, that you abstain from sexual immorality; that each of you know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honor, not in lustful passion, like the Gentiles who do not know God". Now, most English translations have replaced "vessel" with body, which is generally a good guess but in this case removes virtually all meaning from the statement. The correct reading of the somewhat flowery passage is, of course, "that each of you know how to get his own spouse ...", in which case the rest of the sentence and the next ones make sense as well.

(Paul expresses in another letter (to the Corinthians) his concern that unless they marry, most people will burn with pent-up lust and eventually commit adultery. A few people, such as his humble self, are excepted from this, and should be happy about it. But for most people, it is safer to have a spouse of one's own. And not stay separate from that person except for shorter periods, so as to not fall in temptation. (Paul has a healthy respect for other people's sex drive, evidently.) Anyway, given this knowledge it is pretty easy to read what he's saying here. It also helps to know that Jews at least for a while used the expression "sanctification" about the marriage ritual. Not sure if they still do.)

Now then, according to Paul (and I agree with him in this) the problem is not that one has lust. This is basically how we are made, it is part of the human condition, and one should seek a way to accommodate it if needed, without falling under the control of the lust. As a more recent psychologist said, it is OK that I have feelings but it is not OK if the feelings have me. It is a question of who is in control.

***

Therefore, even though I will get my own AZ2558 eventually, I don't want to buy one while my heart is beating faster around it. One should never expect things in this world to make one happy. To act on one's desires is like throwing a stone up in the air: It will always crash to the ground shortly after, and quite possibly hit you on your head in the process.