Aug 23, 2023 4 min read

Objects of desire

Reflections on beauty and the items that remind us to experience it

Who determines the worth of things, and how much does it help or hinder our experience to view the things we take pleasure in through the lens of external notions around attachment and desire? This piece emerged during a collective reflective writing practice where we considered some of the things we hold dear. I’ve wrangled with this one a lot, from an overly moralised perspective, to one of mindful pleasure, free of excess thinking on the matter (albeit through said thinking). The latter is where I mostly lean. I invite you to consider your own relationship with objects and desire…

I wear jewellery today that I gifted to myself. A turquoise bracelet, with beads of African turquoise interspersed with Tiger’s eye, made by a friend from whom I first bought a blue throat chakra healing mala sometime around 2018. I went looking for that because I am always open to things that might remind me of and facilitate my healing practice, my commitment to stay with myself, with the things that hurt and need tending to.

One might say, why do you need them? And I have wondered about my own desires as they pertain to buying ever more trinkets, pens, books, jewellery and incense sticks, as though these things will fix me. But it’s not so much about need as desire, about invoking relief through a healing touch, through things that bring me back to my senses when my head gets heavy as it so often does.

Sure, that reasoning could arguably be rooted in a sense of lack, in scarcity, deprivation and desperation. If so, so what, and why not? Why can’t I enjoy these things in the uncomplicated and thoughtless way that others seem to? Why can’t I treat myself to things of beauty that delight?

It may be psychosomatic, it may be a little materialistic, but it’s also true that it helps, soothes, aligns and inspires me. They are tools as well as trinkets.

Do I place faith, foolish faith, in objects? No. I don’t wear or buy them thinking that somehow these things will absolve or dissolve the things I associate them with. I wear them because they remind me of goodness, of potential, of hope, of enthusiasm and diligence.

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I went through a phase prior to the first Lockdown of drastically reducing all my possessions, in the vein of minimalism, virtuously and earnestly getting rid of, by giving to charity, hundreds of books, clothes and jewellery, keeping only a few select items. Marie Kondo style.

I went black and white in my clothing, thinking to keep it simple, thinking to reduce the time seemingly wasted overthinking what to wear and read. Then Lockdown happened and after a year or so, I missed the colours in my wardrobe, the earrings that made me feel happier with my face, and the friends I could turn to on my bookshelf. So, I bought more things. Was this a failure of intention or a realisation of a new one?

It’s not wrong to want to feel good about oneself. That’s where any journey has to start. With a comfortable-ish basis. I realise now I had forced myself into a mentality of lack, gone to the extreme, for some well-intentioned though poorly realised end.

So now, I wear my turquoise mala and I’m reminded to look. Not everything has to be infused with virtuous meaning, and it’s okay if it is. The turquoise is apparently a healing stone, the Tiger’s eye one of wisdom. I went in search of turquoise when my meditation teacher suggested to us during a particular practice, Inner Rushen, “Buddhist psychotherapy”, that it is associated with healing and to keep it close can help.

Whether I channel healing through these objects doesn’t matter so much as the fact that the objects remind me to embody something more.

My first tattoos were the same. I wanted to paint my body with beautiful reminders, and while I don’t always pause to consciously admire the Enso on my shoulder or the tree on my spine, the elephant on my back or the swirling flow of brushstrokes on my arm, I do like those parts of my body a little more for the fact that art adorns them.

It’s a perceptual shift, facilitated by what I’ve made myself see, a commitment to what I carry and to what I want to release, through the things I feel and touch. They bring me joy, simple delights. I’m glad of them, no virtue required.

I wear my bracelet daily, I admire it as I finger the smooth beads, I pause and play with it as I walk. And that’s a wonderful thing. To be touched by beauty.