Food From a Hungry Ghost

I have been going through a consumer panic for the PS5, lately. I have a perfectly functional PS4 that I use to play games on the same TV I’ve had since before owning a PS3. I have no idea where this impulse is coming from. I don’t need the game system. I cannot justify prioritizing funds for something as trivial as that. But I still feel like I want it.

The desire starts with a feeling like caffeine. My heart jumps when I see articles and posts validating my desires. There’s a noticeable tremble in my arms and shoulders while I look over every detail. I am laser focused. And then: I notice a timer.

The only thing that has saved me from my impulsiveness may have been my hatred of pressure sales. They have a timer running when you add the PS5 to your cart allowing only 9 minutes to seal the deal. Giving me only 9 minutes to throw $500-$600 at something I’ve never even test-played doesn’t strike me as fair. Especially when you’re going to charge me $80 just to get you to fix/replace it if it breaks prematurely.

Instead of immediately removing the item from my cart, I consider what it will take to pick up the damn thing (a drive to Short Pump in Holiday traffic? ha!). I consider all of the things I already have, and how they already need (ahem: deserve) to be cleaned. I consider the time away from Ulster and the Liz that it would require. I consider that we need to get the bathroom repainted, and its sink drain fixed, and how all of these things are attainable without a PS5 – it won’t make them happen faster or better.

Then a sadness begins to accompany the desire: I begin to feel undeserving of what I want. Unworthiness and desire go hand-in-hand in my habitual thinking. A part of me repeats a message I picked up somewhere along the road of my (almost) 40 years: “If I were worthy, I’d have whatever I wanted.” This type of wallowing cannot stand in the eyes of some part of me. So of course the ego or some such will take the wheel and smash the “buy” button. Because by buying I am proving my worthiness. I am worth $500, I tell myself. Or even better “It’s only $500!” I’ll think, detached from my present reality where I work for an hourly wage for which I’d have to work more than 30 hours to earn $500.

Or so it has gone for so many things. But not this PS5. For this, I am simply observing those feelings, those habits, and this whole experience of desire. I might get one, eventually. But not before the Holiday.