Affluence

Somewhere in between two dreams during a comfortable afternoon nap, an interesting thought occurred to me. How do the truly needy cope with the torture that must be, walking through Christmas malls of commerce's latest unaffordable trinkets?

Then, I thought about how I deal with the idea that I will possibly never be able to afford a Ferrari (to pick a symbolic modern trinket). That is when I realised that I already have, or can continue to hope to have, all that I truly need. The wants are not capable of torture.

Why is the climb up Mt. Maslow increasingly onerous as we gain altitude? Do we struggle to breathe comfortably in the rarified haze where needs meld with wants? Or, is it because those needs won't be met by accumulating more of the same?

As a side, I would never want to be "able" to afford the $200,000 wall-clock peddled in a corner store on the top floor of ION Orchard, as that might just tip me over a kind of moral precipice.