When I was in high school in the 1990s, I remember standing in my bedroom telling my mom that if I just had a CD player, I would not need anything else. I meant it. I had worked out something about my life and I was reporting the finding to my mother, who I am sure had heard me make similar arguments before about other objects of desire.
Back then, most teenagers wanted stuff, like stereo equipment or a bike. It’s the second half of that sentence that can cause havoc if we’re not careful: “I would not need anything else.” I had made a prediction about the end of my wanting.
In the movie The Jerk, Steve Martin’s character does something similar, albeit more dramatic. He walks out of the house saying he doesn’t need any of his things. Except an ashtray. “That’s all I need!” he says. Just the ashtray. And the paddle game. And the remote control. But he keeps saying it over and over, grabbing more and more things. Matches, a lamp, etc. Just one more thing, and then nothing more.
In my case, probably like Steve Martin’s character, I sincerely believed what I was saying. I really did. In that moment, I wanted music, and the new best way to listen to music was with a CD player, the latest, shiny consumer technology. And I got one that lasted a long time. The error wasn’t loving the thing. The error was the totality.
Patañjali has a word for this, and it’s the first one in his list of afflictions. Avidya usually gets translated as “ignorance,” which makes it sound like a gap in your education. Yoga Sutra 2.5 is more specific and more uncomfortable: taking the impermanent for permanent, and taking what doesn’t satisfy as the thing that will. Avidya is also the first of the 5 Kleshas because the other four grow out of it. Being confidently wrong about where satisfaction comes from has a domino effect.
The thing is, I still say sentences like that, and now that I’m “all growed up” into a “proper” old man, my reasons sound much more convincing. Last week it was one more tweak to my website, which is a project with no bottom and which I have adjusted more times than I would like to admit. Before that it was a piece of recording gear. The wanting looks reasonable now in a way a CD player didn’t when I was fifteen, and reasonable is the problem. Nobody argues with a guy who has a meditation podcast and says he needs a better microphone. Nobody except my wife, which is part of the reason I love her so much.
But getting the thing doesn’t fix the belief. I did get the CD player, and it was fantastic. I remember what it sounded like and where I put it on my shelf. The satisfaction may not have lasted long, but it was real, and brief satisfaction seems a lot more like evidence than data. You don’t conclude “so that’s what a few weeks of contentment costs.” You conclude “that worked,” and then you go looking for the next one. I made a similar argument a few months ago about slot machines and AI. Turns out I had the habit long before I had a smartphone.
The harmonium is the one I can defend even harder because the evidence is so convincing. I love practicing it in the mornings when nobody is around. Part of my argument for buying it was that I would be making music instead of only listening to it, which seems like a different category of want. At fifteen I wanted a machine that would play music at me. Thirty-some years later I wanted to be the one making the sound. No electricity or WiFi required. And that felt like the good kind of wanting. I’m doing this for the students! And I did, and they do love it. I would buy it again tomorrow. But it did not end anything. Receiving or doing, the sentence didn’t change all that much from when I said it in my bedroom.
The harmonium was never going to end the wanting. Nothing I could have bought would have ended it. It makes a good sound and it will go on making one for years, and that’s enough.
Here’s what I’d offer, and it isn’t an ask to give anything up. Listen for the clause. Not the wanting, which is fine and human and often points at something true, like my wanting music did. Listen for the little addition that comes after it: “and then I’ll be set.” “Once this is done, I can relax…” “When the site is finished…” “When I get the harmonium…” Say it out loud and see whether you still believe it. When I hear myself say those words it just sounds silly, like I’m telling a joke.
You don’t have to cancel the order. Just notice that you made a prediction, and that you’ve made it before, and that you have a track record you could consult.
What are you currently sincere about?
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