Language warning. I may or may not use some "cuss words" in this post. Read at your own risk
The above quotation, spoken by a certain Sally Brown (Charlie Brown's sister), hits on what I was thinking I'd write about tonight: the difference between "want" and "need." These two contrasting ideas have been on and off my mind the past couple months. Now, I'm finally going to try and flesh my thoughts out onto virtual paper.
People in our day & age really don't know the definition of "want" and "need." In our culture, many people apparently "need" a big screen tv or "need" a new car or even "need" an xbox360 or ps3. Our culture is full of complete and utter bullshit. I am guilty of all this foolish thinking myself. Us people think that if we just get this possession or this other possession that our lives will be better and more "happy," therefore we put those things in the category of need. However, that mentality is total bullshit. So often we value that which moths and rust destroy, even to the point of worship. When we make anything other than God into a god of our own, we begin to build our lives around those things and fall into a mentality of dependency and "need."
Now, on to want. We all want a hell of a lot of things in life. We want people to love us, we want material possessions, we want social status, we want power, and as my parents use to sing, we "want what we want when we want it." Now, I'm not saying that of all this stuff is bad. I think our desire to be loved by others is a natural desire. However, very often we turn that into a desire to be worshipped and then think we "need" to be loved.
This week I've been thinking about what I want for Christmas and honestly, there are a few things I'd like to get but there is not a single thing I need. Sure, it'd be cool if a bunch of unrealistic stuff happened with a relationship that's been plaguing me lately, but that's solely an 11:11 sort of desire, not a "need." I need oxygen, water, food, and warm. I need forgiveness for the horrible things I think and do. I don't need a Macbook Pro. I don't need a tv or movies or a Netflix account. I don't need any of this materialistic stuff that will ultimately fade.
Like all things in this cliche thing called life, I don't fully understand this whole want/need dichotomy but I know that there are few things we actually need and far too many things we want. We are creatures that are too easily satisfied with garbage and then once our moment, and it is a moment, of fixation passes, we look for something else to satisfy.
I'm really distracted since I'm watching It's A Wonderful Life, so I'm just gonna finish this post with a quote from CS Lewis...
"“If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world. If none of my earthly pleasures satisfy it, that does not prove that the universe is a fraud. Probably earthly pleasures were never meant to satisfy it, but only to arouse it, to suggest the real thing.”"
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