Intentional, conscious, deliberate.

Understand, comprehend, grasp.

Guilt, remorse, contrition.

Luxury, inessential, unnecessary.

Synonyms. It was intentional that I placed these words in this order: for reference to some important words throughout this passage, please refer to your synonymic guide above. For you to understand exactly why, I will explain why you should feel guilt for the luxuries in your life.

In describing technology’s greatest navigational tool since the night stars, the GPS, I concluded that it was an unnecessary luxury. A friend replied, ‘Aren’t all luxuries unnecessary? That’s what makes them luxuries?’ He then told me to blog about that. I felt dumb.

I lost a game of Scrabble to a nearly illiterate woman the other day and lost a lot of self-esteem. The writer should be able to manipulate letters to spell the largest words, being the natural grasper of words, a wordsmith. I played hockey with a group of friends and couldn’t even stand up most of the time. The guy who loves hockey so much should be able to stay on his feet for more than five minutes, or at least be conscious of the lack of ability. I know it isn’t necessary that I am good at such activities, but the luxury, the non-physical, non-material luxury, is tempting.

Live within your means is what some people tell me. If your means are high, live highly. If your means are low, live lowly. Buy things you don’t need because it is within your means. Don’t buy a GPS if you can barely pay rent. The logic of ‘We were lucky enough to live in a place where we can afford to buy inessential objects so we shouldn’t feel bad doing so,’ is about as sound as the logic of, ‘We live in a land where murder and rape are common so we shouldn’t feel bad to intentionally take part.’ Living overly wealthy just because you live in a society where you can do so is like deciding to piss on a dog just because he is stuck in a cage; you know better than to do it, but for your own personal selfish enjoyment, you indulge.

The more we abandon the nonessential, the closer we become to being humans, and not this social level of humans with accessories. Human beings enjoy slight comforts, which is perfectly fine and positive, but when the slight comforts become commonplace, or the only thing being searched for, or distracting, then they are just inessential, unnecessary luxuries. If it ain’t necessity, you don’t need it.

‘Tis the season to hide our love for unnecessary, inessential, luxurious indulgences behind a company created ‘Christmas Spirit’.
‘Tis the season to use a holiday of community and peace to increase the excess of our already excess craving society.
‘Tis the season to brand luxuries as ‘thinking of others’ and ‘loving your family.’
‘Tis the season, my friends. Celebrate it with electronics dipped in gold, drizzled with chocolate, wrapped in cellophane, tied with ribbons and justified because it was on sale.
‘Tis.