On:  Tue Aug 26, 2003  9:49 am, I wrote: "little luxuries, like an excellent croissant & coffee" {at:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/LessIsMore/message/11376 after signing-in} :-

· On other occasions ("fatty-acids and type 2 diabetes", 2003-08-21 +1200,
at: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/LessIsMore/message/11340 , and in my Feb.
2001 post to PF: http://csf.colorado.edu/mail/pfvs/2001I/msg01020.html ), I
have proposed that people _choose_: necessaries, desirables, and luxuries.

· One of my luxuries is having an excellent croissant with creamy coffee.

· I've just done that; I went up to our organic bakery, bought a just-baked
croissant, took it home and made myself some instant coffee (that's also a
luxury of mine) made with full-cream (non-homogenised) organic milk.

· As I was leaving the bakery, I mentioned that I could have this luxury
_now_, but not in a few weeks.

· Stephanie asked why, which gave me the opening to explain that I would be
eating less, starting in a few weeks.
Spring is very good for me in most ways, but it is also the time when I
take off the extra weight I put on in early autumn every year: I use the
layer of fat as extra insulation during fall and winter.

· _I_ have a particular list of: necessary, desirable, and luxury items; my
wife has a somewhat different list, and our daughter divides-up what she
eats and uses in still a third way. But we all pay a lot of attention to
the avoidance of waste.

· This doesn't mean _none_; we all avoid dichotomous thinking|*.
(|*: Black-white, good-bad, yes-no, etc.)

· _Some_ of most things, is OK. But I see self-restraint, putting limits on
one's appetites, as good for both the individual and the world as a whole.

· I have the advantage of having grown up poor.
Then, we children had the _external_ limitation "we don't have the money
for that!"
But a person making their own choices, is the essence of being an adult
human, IMO. And a "necessary, desirable, and luxury" list, is part of that.

David.
(David MacClement) Civis Mundi davd @ ihug.co.nz
http://www.geocities.com/davd.geo/ ZL1ASX
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