[Intrepid Homoludens]

What is luxury to you? Is it something you quickly associate with money and status? Do you consider it rare and elusive, therefore impossible to enjoy? Is luxury a thing you savour only a few times in your life? Can something that costs nothing be a luxury?

I've just added another feature page in my home site ego, thinking about what luxury means to me and how it enriches my life in little ways. At this time of year, when so many good things converge, I develop this tendency to become much more discerning as to what I find truly luxurious. Link is below...

l u x u r y

What do you personally find luxurious?

[Wajus]

For me it's the ability to enjoy or experience something fully and without any moral, physical or psychic restraints. The rest is just means or tools - it doesn't really matter if something is free or expensive. If you I can't enjoy something fully than it's not a luxury. Therefore even the moment of silence, solitary, a beautiful morning view, basketballing with friends, new game or new music album can be treated as luxury but only when you can afford to sink in it. I guess this also explicits that nowadays time can be a luxury also. I think I'm an extremely lucky person when it comes to all of the above.

[Starflux]

Hmm, unrestricted enjoyment... you have a point there Wajus. I guess (I haven't yet put that much thought to it) up to now I've always found luxury to be virtually everything that isn't necessary to survive. Everything not bound by a prime necessity. Though that's the rational stance. Irrationally, a luxurious item would be something that you can't have all the time (like some fancy meal), or something very rare and valuable (like a limited edition DVD).

Though in terms of experiences, Wajus' thoughts come accross as very truthful. An unrestricted enjoying comes so rarely to me, as I find myself viced and preoccupied by emotions beforehand and during the experience. It would be a grand luxury indeed in that case. But then it would appear to me, that the ignorant have more luxurious lives than we

[Skinny Minnie]

Luxury is time for a bubble bath, without kids/cats pushing open the door and harassing me. Oh, and the phone doesn't ring then, either.

Fuzzy sweaters are nice, Trep, but the last time I spent that kinda money on an article of clothing was a wedding dress 16 years ago. It's nice to be single and childless, huh?

[Tanukitsune]

Sleeping more than 5 hours a day is a luxury to me...

[Wajus]

Originally Posted by Skinny Minnie

It's nice to be single and childless, huh?

Yeah, but for how long? I think that in the end it's you who's really lucky one

edit: But I guess it's my luxury to say so

[Zygomaticus]

For me, a luxury is something that I am privileged to have, either because I have more money or some ability, etc.. Something that not many other people have. That makes me thankful.

I can lift million pound boxes. That's a luxury I have. It allows me to be independant, and it allows me to fend off trucks when I'm run over. Not a luxury many people have.

I live in a nice house. Again, not something many people have. I subconsciously thank God and my parents every day for providing me with this luxury.

That is luxury for me. I don't necessarily need it (except when there's a truck on top of me; but why am I there in the first place?) but it sure makes life a lot more...better. After all, all luxury is not material.

[Wormsie]

Luxury is when someone is unbelievably polite to me. (Perferably a handsome young man...)

CD's that have lots of extra material - or different packing - is luxury.

One cheap luxurous thing, however is mango-melon ice cream, when it has melted just the right amount. Yum.

Luxury would also be good-looking clothes that fit. Still waiting for that day, though

Luxury is also when after two weeks of porridge-strange green stuff-more strange stuff the school cafeteria has mashed potatoes, a not-as-bad-as-usual minced meat steak, proper salad, onion sauce and dessert. It's a luxury meal, when compared to the stuff we usually get.

Luxury is a jazz pianist who plays unbelievably evenly and imaginatively and doesn't all the time hide him/her-self behind sevenths

[Swordmaster]

...and some other things.

[Intrepid Homoludens]

Originally Posted by Wajus

For me it's the ability to enjoy or experience something fully and without any moral, physical or psychic restraints. The rest is just means or tools - it doesn't really matter if something is free or expensive. If you I can't enjoy something fully than it's not a luxury. Therefore even the moment of silence, solitary, a beautiful morning view, basketballing with friends, new game or new music album can be treated as luxury but only when you can afford to sink in it. I guess this also explicits that nowadays time can be a luxury also. I think I'm an extremely lucky person when it comes to all of the above.

We are operating exactly on the same frequency, Wajus. As I wrote, that $1.50 hot cocoa from Dunkin' Donuts was one of the most luxurious I've ever had, I think it had to do with all the right elements being in place - the cold, cold weather, the wait for the bus, that I hadn't had hot cocoa in a while and I was wonderfully exhausted from working a full day. I vanished into that hot cocoa.

Originally Posted by Skinny Minnie

Fuzzy sweaters are nice, Trep, but the last time I spent that kinda money on an article of clothing was a wedding dress 16 years ago. It's nice to be single and childless, huh?

Cashmere in particular isn't fuzzy, it's actually obscenely deep, silky, and dreamy. I bought my turtleneck a few years ago when I was making more money. These days I am very poor, so that investment turned out to be beyond worth it, because good quality lasts years and years. Didn't your mother keep her pretty old cashmere twinsets for you? The finest from back then are so resilient they'll keep for generations, you know.

My huge ivory Donegal wool and silk tweed scarf is fuzzy, I love it, love disappearing into it.

But Minnie, didn't you catch my special 'luxury hot chocolate' recipe? Eh?

[emma]

You know the feeling, when you wake up in the morning, and you don't have to get up, the sheets feel extra smooth, it's not too hot nor too cold... mmmmm That's luxury.

Yeah, luxury isn't dependant on the state of the wallet, it's definately a time of indulgence and having no guilt for it. Bliss!

[Kingzjester]

I am not particularly impressed with stock luxurious things and yet I consider myself unnecessarily decadent at times. I am Spartan and pretentious. I let either side of me run amok for a spell, and then I let the other one take over for a while. I seldom buy clothing, but when I do I spend enough money on a given article to feed a kid in some third world country for a month... or I buy second hand. I have two very different wardrobes: 'a flamboyant hedonist' and 'a very clean bum'. When I reconcile and combine the two, my friends call it, 'cultivated air of uncultivation'.

Living in the Western world in and of itself a decadent thing, so pretty much everything is a luxury as far as I am concerned. By the very fact that we do not think whether we'll have enough money to feed our kids tomorrow, or whether we'll be warm enough come wintertime, everything we do is some form of luxury...

Well, let's narrow the range to our lives and throw out the rest of the Wider World from our inquiry sphere.

'I wanna,' is a luxury; 'I need,' is its antonym. At times we confuse them. 'I need a kitchen knife,' is a valid need. 'I need a $2000 Henckels Solingen steel professional 12-knife set,' is not if you're not a professional cook or a stylish assassin. Then again, there is that adage, 'I am not rich enough to buy cheap things,' so perhaps there is in the long run a justifiable need to buy quality cutlery and clothes and vehicles... You're not gonna be seen as a profligate for wanting a hot chocolate in a tempest, or a warm fuzzy thing that makes you mellow, or a pair of really snappy shoes after wearing generic Wal-Mart junk for years - these things are in service of recuperating your spirit - but what benevolent need could anyone in the greater Houston area have to justify wanting a Hummer? To fight the Al Qaeda in the asphalt boondocks?

What is gained from this lowering of the threshold between light respite from the commonplace and luxury? Should we feel like we're better off than we really are, by upgrading the little bonus we gave ourselves to a 'luxury'? Or is this very musing meant to make us appreciate the little things a bit more?

[ragnar]

Luxury is to me when I can do whatever I want whenever I want for how long I want without any restrictions such as needing to go to work and earn money, doing errands for other people etc. Luxury isn't for me in specific things, but rather in my personal freedom.

[Curt]

Originally Posted by Kingzjester

...........
What is gained from this lowering of the threshold between light respite from the commonplace and luxury? Should we feel like we're better off than we really are, by upgrading the little bonus we gave ourselves to a 'luxury'? Or is this very musing meant to make us appreciate the little things a bit more?

That's an excellent point, Kingz. I'd say the latter is most true for me as there are so many things I take for granted that many people in the world really would probably consider luxuries. They are really also luxuries to me in a sense.

It's all relative to ones status and what one is accustomed to really - Intrepid considers his cashmere turtleneck more of a luxury now than the day he bought it when he was financially better off, if I understand him correctly.

[syntheticgerbil]

Any time spent not performing something for someone else, tangible or not.