WildernessPunk Extravagance

So I moved from a cool mountain paradise with no humidity and mosquitos down to a steaming desert to be blasted by the heat in the middle of the summer. One could say my choice has questionable merit and might have been unwise. Butttttt, hear me out.

I have also moved from the most expensive place in the state to the cheapest. Tucson rent, literally less than half as much. I’m looking at two bedrooms for around 600$ a month when the last two-bedroom place I called in Flagstaff wanted 1700$ and that was with two families living in your back yard.

Gotta say, “Screw that.”

I’m not having it any more. Flagtown is one of the best places to live in the USA, but I’m at a point in my life I’m just not going to flush an extra 600$ a month away to help make someone else rich. I’m not going to go into it, but it’s time, for this guy to live smaller (Remember the mouse?).

Which could bring up this episode of WildernessPunk’s topic, Extravagance. Some forms of extravagance are obvious. The guy spending his wages on cocaine. (Do people still do that?) The rest of humanity could look at him and say, “What a fool. I’m so much better than that.”

Still, and you knew this was coming, I think much like how we all cherry pick the ways we’re helping the world and being environmental, I think we also pick our extravagance. For the purpose of this discussion, I will consider an extravagance as something you have/do which is spiked up financially and perhaps with the use of time, much higher than the other parts of your life.

Let me give you some examples:

• Having a hotrod when you live in an apartment
• Spending a month of your wages on a vacation once or twice a year
• Gambling frequently
• Cigarettes
• Any constant use of drugs from caffeine to cocaine, this includes alcohol of course.
• Buying ATVs or jet skis for no legitimate use
• Living in an expensive place without the job to match
• Buying expensive things without the job to match

This list could go on, but I think you get the idea. I’m not saying living large in some way is wrong. We should all choose what we want to do in life. What I am saying is more on the line with the glass house and a pile of rocks sort of thing. Is the person who is impoverished because she has a huge car payment each month so different than a guy who blows four hundred bucks a month gambling? Maybe she’ll have more to show for it, but you never know, while she’s eating rumen, he’s off having a great time for ten hours, meeting people, and developing fun memories.

Personally, I think a great vacation is much better than wasting money on cocaine. (Why is he still picking on the poor coke heads?) Yet, there could be some similarities.

• When it is over, all you have are memories
• You could now be quite broke for a month or more
• You could have racked up more debt
• No one is much interested in what happened besides you
• Both wish they didn’t have to go back to the real world and could remain in that state

And so… what’s my point, yes sometimes I have one. I believe we should each be careful judging other’s hobbies, pastimes, and motivations, when we might be living very extravagantly ourselves, but just in a different way. Whether you spend an extra 600$ a month to live in a mountain town, drive the best car at the office, or party until 2pm every Friday and Saturday night, they’re all extravagant behaviors and all wasteful in some degree.

Such things should be thought through carefully, like all important things in life. Perhaps even consider your impact on the environment. The guy dumping 6 bottles a day into the trash, is certainly hurting the eco-sphere more than the gambler flipping cards. But wait, did the gambler spend 10 bucks on gas and use a quarter tank to get to the casino…

Until next time, be careful when you choose your poison and don’t be too quick to judge another just because their brand is different than yours.

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You can grab some of my fiction here, which I promise has nothing to do with this.

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