The Want/Need Glass

Want/Need Glass designed by Inna Alesina, dishwasher-safe.

The small hole divides the volume of the glass into two parts: "need" (below the hole) and "want" (above the hole).

"Alesina Design, Inc. shall not be held responsible for ruined clothes as a result of misuse of this product."

From the comments section at Book of Joe, the final word on this has to be:

According to Aristotle, once your needs are met you should carefully examine your wants so that you can live the best life possible. As in I want to buy this glass but I don't need it and it won't improve my life.

The Cosmic Vortex

The Egyptians, according to Iamblicus who wrote his famous 'Mysteries' in the early Christian era, believed in cosmic vortex forces they generically called 'gods' and which would arise in human situations inexplicably bending the universe surrounding us. The example he gave was of the pregnant woman and the swirling vortices of godlike forces attracting into her all of the rare and obscure materials now needed for the assembly of a new human being. Our culture only comically acknowledges the 'cravings' but as anyone who has been through it knows, there is much more to the story than just a merciless request for midnight pickles and ice cream. It is a force of nature.

Alan Watts tells us that the flower doesn't bloom. The flower cannot exist without the plant, the soil, the meadow and all of the insect and plant inhabitants who, together, form the unified ecological unit of being that is the meadow, and that this particular flower could not exist were it not for the environment that supports and is supported by it. And so it is that it is not the flower but the meadow which blooms.