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Teaching myself how to actually “buy” things…

Money Bankroll Girls February 08, 20115

Many people have an amazing capacity to self-deceive. I write the previous sentence not out of supremacy but out of lack of this amazing capacity. It makes perfect sense to self-deceive—when I am wandering in the wilderness, starving to death, I would be protecting myself psychologically to refuse to accept the reality of my situation. So self-deception is not something to look “down” on as “bad.”

My core creativity as a poet makes me sensitive to words. I have noticed when I hear someone say the phrase, “I bought that,” I was compelled to ask the question—of myself—‘Have I really ever “bought” anything?’ I brought myself great psychological injury when I began to accept the fact I have rarely bought anything for most of my financial life.

I define the act of buying something as paying for something such that it does not incur future debt—usually this means securing a “good” with cash. Most of my ‘securing’ has made me financially insecure: I have had typical North American relationship with credit. I have not “bought” things. I have charged them—incurring a public/‘vulgar’ debt. I have charged myself with the task of paying off vulgar debts in a future (now past) that had no global financial collapses of dimensions never seen.

In defense against this ‘attack’ on my financial self, I must remember that many of my purchases were out of impoverished curiosity (for “geek gadgets”)—and out of a conscious decision to refuse to take out a “business loan” because I am not like an entrepreneur working feverishly on an aggressive timetable—I am more like an independent researcher without a self-destructive devotion to concept of time.

Back to the ‘attack’ (which sounds like a “contradiction” for me so opposed to violence—including self-inflicted emotional violence): I critique myself. I can interpret my ‘charging’ of things as a passive-aggressive financial act—forcing me to defend myself against financial ruin by “vulgar debt.” My past behavior reveals to me a person trying to be in several financial places at once—a person of impatience, steeped in an irresponsible optimism.

What is needed is offensive, active financial planning in motion as an activity revealing a whole coherence surrounding a bright and clear theme. And, of course, I can write about this now because it does not hurt as much as it used to… I’m older—less fascinated with geek gadgets. My children are older and they need more resources… And, of course, today—right about now—it looks like I have the financial tools begin at the bottom of solvency and a healthy, down-home conservatism around finances.

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