Recently I was looking at mimetic desires. I was reviewing it, because I had seen it a few years ago. It's the idea where we desire things that other people desire. We get our desires from other people, and by watching them and copying them. And most of our desires it seems are for things.
{{ callout(text="...we don't want to copy other people...") }}
I was upset by this when I first read about it. I thought I'm not copying other people. This seems to be deep in Western society, where we don't want to copy other people. So for a long time I was trying not to copy other people or I spent time figuring out ways that I could avoid that.
{{ callout(text="...I don't have the desire to copy other people...") }}
I think my meditation is helping in that regard. I'm losing my attachments slowly. That means that I don't have a desire to copy other people as much. But it's not black and white it's a gray scale. I've been losing desires but they're not gone entirely.
{{ callout(text="...it doesn't cost me money because I make it myself...") }}
These days I find I don't want things as much. Or rather I'm happy with anything when it comes to clothes or food. On the other hand, one of my ambitions is to make things. I especially like making things with software. In a sense it's not a real physical object, so it doesn't take up space and it doesn't cost me money because I make it myself. But at the same time it is a possession, and I do have a desire for it. So I've changed my desires from concrete things to abstract things. This is pretty good on some levels because I'm not consuming a lot of natural resources.
For example, my software is quite efficient so it doesn't take a lot of electricity and it doesn't generate a lot of carbon. (also I don’t have a lot of traffic to my site so it does not use electricity; it is a vanity site) I'm not exploiting people in a direct sense like I do when I consume food or clothing (I’m referring to fair trade here). On the other hand it still is a craving and I'm cleaning to desire to possess, and desire to show others my accomplishments, which only feeds my ego. So I guess I need to move further down the path of dropping my attachments.