Illuminating

Today Mr O & I bought a lamp. When you choose a life partner, you ought to check compatibility of light sensitivity. No-one tells you this.

No-one tells you that the rest of your life will be a continual tug-of-war if someone nearly night-blind marries a photosensitive. It's a tale of woe and subterfuge, I assure you, with 45 watt globes being swapped out for 100 watt globes (and vice versa) to screams of outrage when next the switch is flipped. It's a tale of moaning about how impossible it is to read in the dark, countered by moaning about how the light is too bright and hurts.

On the plus side, after nearly 20 years we've learned a lot about indirect light placement and each other's wattage needs. So the purchase of a lamp that suits both of us is akin to an outbreak of peace in whichever international crisis is headlining today. It's a bonus that it wasn't even expensive.

Heat, air and lighting. Fashions in interior design come and go, but if you get the heat, the air and the lighting right, people will enjoy being in a space. They create comfort and lead to happiness (mostly by not impeding our progress toward happiness, the way cold, airless and dark spaces do).

I've come late to materialism, but there are some things that money can buy - but only money allied with awareness and discernment. Spending for spending's sake does not confer the same benefit. It's not the money, after all, it's what you buy with it. Heat, air and light. I find that thought strangely illuminating.

This is post 66 of 100 posts in 100 days.