Yet Untitled 046 - That’s What I Want

Feelings about gifting and receiving gifts

Feb 26, 2023

Dearest Yet Untitler,

My birthday approaches. And along with it comes, for me, a feeling that hasn’t left me since I was a kid - the excitement of getting presents!

Over time, my expectations around this feeling have extended from being excited about what I’ll receive from others to being excited about what I’ll give myself. I have somehow arrived at assuming that nobody else understands what I want better than me! This works against me sometimes, because it prevents many from even trying to gift me something in fear of disappointing me.

So I rely more and more on myself to give myself what I think I need. This has also become progressively more difficult. It wasn’t difficult at age 10, when all I wanted was every G.I.Joe toy in existence!

Now, it’s a different story.

Now, I fight a battle between accumulation anxiety and banal, consumerist, material want that, I must admit, has its moments with me. There are times when I’m like the guy in The Oatmeal’s comic about Apple’s absurd spell on humankind that replaces seasons with release cycles.

At other times, I’m a Marie Kondo acolyte who wants to spark joy by discarding more and more (you may have read a little bit about my KonMarie obsession in Yet Untitled 038).

“Yet Untitled”

Yet Untitled 038 - Three Practices

Welcome back! I hope you’ve had a good week. I’ve been busy, carrying on but mindfully, thanks to a refresher course in Bullet Journaling I opted into last week. It’s been really fantastic. I don’t know how many of you are familiar with Bullet Journaling (or - BuJo). It’s been defined as a mindfulness practice pretending to be an organization system and…

2 years ago · 3 likes · 6 comments · Vasant Nath

Usually, I balance these two impulses via a practice of ‘one-in, one out’, quickly discarding, donating, giving away something old to make space for the new on every purchase.

This year, however, proved to be a problem!

This year, I found myself stuck.

This year, in the weeks running up to my birthday, I found that I needed nothing. Nothing material, at least.

On having hit optimum, I thought now, that’s a bummer, not gifting myself anything when I have full permission from me to do just that. And there was the question - What would Vasant do if he fails to find the right gift for himself? Nobody else ever gets it more right than him.

This conundrum resulted in this present edition of YU!

Gifting, itself

Gifting is an art that I respect, because it involves understanding someone and thinking about that wonderful question: “what will make them happy?”. I find this question even lovelier in the context of gifting because of its lightness, bereft of the gravity inherent in the far more poignant versions of the question, i.e. “What does it take to make Man happy?” et al.

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My niece Tara is a fantastic gift-giver. She gave me something that’s evocative of one of my favorite songs and commemorates our shared love for it. Another time she gave me a sippy cup in the shape of a Canon EOS red ring lens. I love both gifts. I would have never imagined on my own how much I’d like them.

My good friend Michael is also a wonderful gift giver. More than receiving gifts from him (knowing him is one already) I have helped him choose gifts for others. Thinking about gifts with him is an amazing experience: a journey into understanding the recipient afresh, seeing them through Michael’s eyes that isolate, respect and celebrate some part of them that others with less keen perceptions miss. Receiving a gift from Michael is like feeling some sunlight fall on some cold, damp parts of your life.

Thinking about Michael and Tara and their wonderful gift when it comes to gifting, I wonder: have I distanced myself from the bounty of the universe by being so self-sufficient in serving my needs. Have I not left any room to be surprised by the world anymore? Has ‘Only Vasant Knows What He Really Wants’ cost me something?

A little, for sure. But, I’m not doing too badly.

One of the best gifts I received for my 40th birthday was 40 mins of singing soppy songs with my friend Takesh and cracking really bad jokes with him for the space of an evening.

The best gift I received for my 42nd birthday was free-rein to dance till 2am to Prabhu Deva hits from the late 90s.

Thinking about it, I like congregating with those I love on birthdays because they remind me of who I really am. Some of them do this via a gift. Others just given me permission and urge me to be a certain way - a way in which they know will make me happy!

Bless you all. You know who you are.