Using things to fulfill happiness

[The Penguin]

I'm interested hearing from those use things to fulfill happiness?

For myself, is building my toys and dolls collection to make me feel having a lot of company at my home.

I keep finding various photography gear to improve ways I can capture photos.

There one thing with me, I don't over spend for something I can't afford. I also focus buying things on sale or try to find the lowest price possible.

Most things I buy is not finding the latest thing on the market, or keeping up with trends. It about being something I truly want.

Most thing I get to fulfill my happiness does relate to my hobbies. I think my favorite thing I got a few months ago was my R.C. car. I consider it a great investment as it something that gets me outside the house. I do have fun driving it while trying to film it with my cameras at the time. I keep trying to picture different type of shots I can capture each site I drive my R.C.

My photography hobby also goes well with my camping and hiking trips.

I don't advise people to use things to fulfill happiness while having limited contact with people. For myself I'm OK with it since I'm focusing my life living as a hermit.

 

[Mia]

Bit like you that way Willy, I save for things I want. Although I don't know that I buy things to create happiness. Usually buy things to replace something worn or broken. My recent purchase of a biking helmet with a pull down sunshade did make me happy tho. So sick of getting bugs in my eyes while cycling, and as I wear glasses, the bugs seem to get caught under my glasses! Now that doesn't happen anymore.

Glad that you are able to buy things that you like and want, that's good.

 

[Naturalist]

I have always had an interest in material culture, in part because certain things make me incredibly happy just to hold or use them. My vintage drawing and painting equipment, my homemade inks in old stoneware bottles, my stoneware coffee mug and 1830s teacup, favorite books, my antique rocking chair, linen textiles, my violin, my rocks and other natural or antique objects I have collected. Those are just a few. I don't get such a sense of fulfillment from being around people (except my son). But many of these objects make me happy because they have connections to lives other than my own, and having the objects makes me feel that I have connections to them too. Even though I may never know them personally, I have something tangible in common with them and so I am not alone. My violin is over 150 years old so it has many other people who loved it before I did. And the natural things make me feel connected to the animals, plants and the earth, even when I am indoors.

Many ancient cultures have concepts of conjuring which are structured around rituals where certain objects are key. I think this is because objects can become imprinted with certain emotional identities which we transfer to them. Last summer I was in the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford, and found it totally fascinating but also sensory / emotional overload. In some ways it is Aspie heaven because there is one case devoted solely to keys arranged by type, another with different beads, another with indigenous American pottery, etc. But in Victorian fashion there were so many things upon things, with different associated emotions resonating with me, that I narrowly avoided a meltdown from feeling happy and sad and curious and terrified, all at the same time. When I go again I will plan one or two cases to examine closely, and then leave, and see a few others on a subsequent visit.

 

[The Penguin]

And the natural things make me feel connected to the animals, plants and the earth, even when I am indoors.

Totally agree. I should buy a plant sometime as I did enjoy taking care of them when I use to be responsible of my father plant. Outdoors wise, I love using my camera in macro mode see detail of small objects that the human eye can't see. I didn't know bugs wings was transparent until I did a close up shot one day. After a rainfall, I am amazed how many rain drops is on flowers using an macro lens. There can be 1000's of them.

I find museums are fun to visit when there very few people this way don't need to worry about people blocking the exhibits. That and of course less noise.

You have a lot of interesting interest and some of them relates to mine.

 

[Naturalist]

Totally agree. I should buy a plant sometime as I did enjoy taking care of them when I use to be responsible of my father plant. Outdoors wise, I love using my camera in macro mode see detail of small objects that the human eye can't see. I didn't know bugs wings was transparent until I did a close up shot one day. After a rainfall, I am amazed how many rain drops is on flowers using an macro lens. There can be 1000's of them.

I find museums are fun to visit when there very few people this way don't need to worry about people blocking the exhibits. That and of course less noise.

You have a lot of interesting interest and some of them relates to mine.

Macro mode is brilliant!!! I have two microscopes--a binocular scope for slides and a dissecting scope for larger objects--and I can spend hours looking through them at things. One day I found that the willow oak has some odd grooved buds that look like figs and are reddish in color... I haven't yet identified what these are but under the microscope they actually have all this tiny crystalline stuff on them (maybe sugars, to attract insect pollinators). And inside looks like plant fruit / ovules but they are not acorns, maybe it is a parasite.

Plants are very nice to have, but I don't have any talent for keeping live plants well, indoors or out. It makes me very sad when they don't flourish.