'special interest' or 'materialism'?

Post Reply New Topic

I like a lot of things. That said, the average person my age may surmise I like very little, by way of things many young adults find important. I do not smoke or drink or party. I do not like to go out and socialize. I don't like the pretension and stress of events and shows or occassions. But to my thinking I like so many things I get dazzled and confused by the wonder of it all.

I like cephalopods, ancient history, my animals, drawing, beauty, comedy shows, zesty soft drinks, music, stationery, soft things, birdsong, video games...

I love Japanese things of all kinds, I love its history, contemporary culture, style, language, music, but most of all, DOLLS! I love the thrill of ordering and attaining and holding this beautiful thing in my hands and giving it a home and having it my peripheral. I find spending money on these harder to resist than collectables or books. Except Japanese books, which I cannot resist. A new book wherein the text is entirely in Japanese thrills me inexplicabley, be it even magazines or other printed matter.

I have bought (and continue to buy) several of these dolls and books. But once I have them, I feel guilty that I spent money on such material pleasures and sometimes sell the items to try and abate the guilt.

Some days, considering the depression and anxiety and other mental illness pains I've had through life, aswell as an impossible to please digestive system and other ailments, along with the fact I don't tend to derive comfort and fun from other places, I feel justified and liberated by my collecting!

Other days, I feel stupid and guilty for spending irresponsibly and buying to indulge juvenile fancies.
I'm so confused over this, especially as a Christian, wondering where the line is between special interest and unhealthy preoccupation, or between harmless self reward and materialism.
Help!!

I don't think there is one right way to answer this.

Since you are a Christian, you need to ask God if you are buying too many dolls and books.

I think a lot of it has to do with motivation. If you are looking to these dolls and books for self-satisfaction and/or validation, that is not good. But, if you are truly rewarding yourself after a job well done. that is a different situation. If the dolls are taking over your room and/or house, that is a problem. But if you are able to keep your collection well presented, OK. Are the dolls in control, or are you? Are you being reckless with your money, and is buying the dolls keeping you from buying other things you actually need or keeping you from being generous with others, that is a problem. But if you have enough money and do practice being generous, then buying a doll from time to time is not a problem.

I am a Christian, too, and all my life I have struggled with the issue of materialism. When I was a kid, I felt guilty for being born an American. I *never* made a Christmas list growing up (to the bewilderment of my parents.) I didn't ask for stuff. I abhor waste and materialism.

However, I am a musician, and my husband and kids are musicians. That, I guess, is my area of hyper-focus, though it is beyond a special interest and into the area of career (I am fortunate to be able to combine the two.) Sometimes I look around at the thousands and thousands of dollars of instruments and gear that we have and wonder if it would have been spent better on the poor, and feeling guilty for needing a larger house than some so we can fit the stuff, etc.

But I know that these guilty feelings are not from God. I *know* I am *supposed to be* a musician. I am made that way - by God. So, it is OK to have all this expensive stuff. As I have gotten older, I have realized that it is not necessarily wrong to have things, even a lot of things.

Only you can answer whether or not the dolls are a problem. Ask God to search your heart and reveal to you if you need to put more limits on this or not.

Thank you for the reply. If you don't mind me asking, how do you feel God answers you when you present a quandry like this in prayer? I struggle with vague concepts like 'feeling things in my spirit' or 'having peace' about something. My mind is really theoretical and over analytical so I would need quite a strong reply. People often say "God told me..something or another" and that always makes me feel a bit dubious, I personally wouldnt use that wording unless his audible voice told me something, and I have only heard that once and am pretty sure I'd recognize it again *-*. I feel like we have our own thing where God speaks to me through something I am reading and it will be timely and really get to me and seem relevant. This is my perception though (I hope it is not just me), other than that I rely a lot on what I can translate from doctrine.

There was one time that God spoke to me in my spirit and it seemed so loud almost to be audible, but it wasn't. That was when I was deciding where to go to college. It was very loud, firm, and a bit stern (but not mean.) I wasn't in a good place then, spiritually or emotionally, so I think that God needed to speak extra loud to get my attention and convince me to do what I needed to do. Because where he was telling me to go to school was NOT where *I* wanted to go.

Other than that time, I only hear God's voice quietly. It is not an audible thing - it is internal. And if I am really stressed out or anxious sometimes it can be hard to settle down and listen. Sometimes, it happens when I am reading something or watching something, and something inside me says, "See this, pay attention." Or, "This is important", or "This is like that situation..." It is like dots get connected for me in life.

Sometimes I just know things that I shouldn't know. For example there's someone I know and before I knew much about him, I knew he had a sister who had died. I just knew. How could I know? Months and months later, he mentioned it. The only explanation I have is that God gave me that information for some reason.

Most of my "prayers" are conversation-like. I will ask about a situation, and then I get some kind of response. It is like a thought comes into my head. But it is not in the form of my own voice or personality. And this "voice" makes a case. Usually, it is like getting an explanation. Like, "you should do this because...." Or, "this makes sense because..." Or, "you need to do this differently because..." Things like that. God talks to me in a way that I understand, and He knows I need reasons. So, he gives them. And, if the situation is ongoing, I will get more and more reasons and/or reassurances as time goes on.

Some people will say this is just me talking to myself. But I don't think so. For one thing, it is not my personality. Another thing, some of those explanations include things I didn't notice. (Some will say I did notice them subconsciously.) Also, sometimes I get these when I am very sad or upset and the "voice" is calm, peaceful, soothing, reassuring, and uplifting. Also, this voice I attribute to God is NEVER, EVER, EVER disrespectful, rude, or mean. I do get an accusing, mean voice in my head sometimes, and I know this is not from God because God is never mean. Even if I am being corrected, the voice is always gentle. Even the time I felt it was stern and loud, it was not mean.

Sometimes, God gives me dreams. I've had this happen a few times. Usually when I dream, the dream is my mind piecing together random things that have happened in the last week into some kind of a story. The dreams from God are not like this at all. They are completely different, so I know that they are "special" dreams. For one thing, they are slower paced and not chaotic so I can soak it in and notice all sorts of details. I usually know exactly what the meaning is, too. And they don't fade in my memory like most normal dreams.

I hope this helps.

I think you're confusing interests with Special Interests!! !

NT's have interests. But they're not like the Special Interests Aspies have.

Usually it's like one or two REALLY Special Interests that start from young and last a lifetime.

Have you got a lifetime long Special Interest? Notice I give Special and Interest capital letters?!?! Because they're SPECIAL... My Special Interests are my whole life! They are ALL I care about!! They are what gives my life meaning!! !

When my main Special Interest ended (through no fault of my own), I had to be hospitalized for deep depression.

If your interests don't affect you like that, it's just an interest and EVERYONE has those!! !!

When it sends you to the looney bin, THAT'S when you know you've got Special Interests in the Special Way!! !! !

I don't know why but I think a lot of especially younger ones are wannabe's! I don't know why. I think it's a form of wanting to belong and a way to be different which is just another form of attention seeking!! !!

How people react to special interests varies from person to person.

I have never had an interest where I went into a depression over not doing it. I was *obsessed* with science until the age of 13. It is too long to go into detail here, but if I gave you all the details, it would sound very Aspie-like.

Music for me is something that I cannot not do. It is *absolutely ingrained* in my life. It is up there with God and family.

When I said special interest I was referring to Japan, not the whole list of things I like. And I think special interests can be a healthy object of diversion and comfort and extreme focus for an aspie, and Japanese things have been that place for me my whole life. I think you may be implementing your personal experience as a template... and I'm not sure if you're implying I'm a young wannabe? how old do you think I am? Regardless, even in my teens I was never the type to compromise anything for 'acceptance'.

I'm a christian too and i also buy too much stuff of my special interest area that is, in my case, video games.
I honestly have no certain opinion about that yet... But having a special interests and investing most of our life on it is one of main aspects of being an aspie don't you agree? So i think God understands that.
Of course there is a limit and this should not be a excuse to do not care about the others, but finding the balance between the "until here it's ok" and "now i'm being too materialistic" it's a completely personal thing and you should try to discover that through God.
And about that:

I have an opinion about that but someone already answered you. Do you still want to read about that?

I understand how you feel. I often go through shopping sprees, only to feel guilty about the amount of money I've spent and regret ever buying the items. The majority of them have wound up in storage. After one particularly expensive spending spree, I even had suicidal thoughts enter my mind because I felt that my own life wasn't worth the amount of money I kept wasting.

What has helped me the most is setting a monthly budget for the items I want to buy.

I have been actively learning which items will and will not be most likely to give me buyer's remorse, so that my monthly budget will not be wasted. I have done this by analyzing my feelings based on past experiences - I learned this because Dr. Phil often says on his show that (not an exact quote) "the best indicator of future behavior is past behavior".

As an example, even though I considered it at one point, buying Ultimate Street Fighter IV would not serve me well because 1) there's really only one character I'd enjoy playing as (Poison) and 2) I am not much of a gamer; I would not get much use out of it. My past purchase of another fighting game (Skullgirls) has barely been touched, which is further proof that SFIV is not worth the money.

What it all comes down to is knowing exactly which products will serve the greatest purpose in your life and - this is very important - setting aside a monthly budget for that product. If an item is beyond your budget, save up a couple of months' worth of allowance. Who knows, you may decide that you don't want it after and wind up with a lot of money to spend on other things you would enjoy even more!

As for where Christianity fits in with all of this - I'm a Christian too (albeit not a very devout one due to some spiritual struggles I have been dealing with over the past several years, although I do still believe in and love God) Anyway, I have never felt guilty on a spiritual level for buying things, because I would never steal or use other illegal means to acquire money, and I occasionally donate to charity through programs like Amazon Smile (which will donate a portion of your purchase to the charity of your choice - you get to go shopping, your charity gets a donation,, it's a win-win situation!)

I really hope my post has been able to give you some peace of mind.

Oh, and by the way, I love Japanese culture too and I am currently looking into buying and customizing dolls as well, so if you ever want to talk Japan or (especially) dolls, send me a PM! I'd absolutely love to have someone to share my passion with!

[/quote]
I have an opinion about that but someone already answered you. Do you still want to read about that?[/quote]

I would like to read what you have to say. We can always learn from one another.

I am a Christian also and I struggle with this same issue. I haven't come up with a definite answer to it myself yet. I did email my cousin who is a Pastor about this topic a few months ago and he believes that if you are tithing and meeting your other financial responsibilities, it is ok to spend money that is left over on yourself. I still want to spend money on things related to my hobbies but usually don't because I feel guilty over doing it. I wish I could come up with a definite answer for myself also.

While this is not spiritually / biblical based I try and decide whether or not if something is worth spending money on with a simple test: Will I be genuinely happier in 6 months ( or 1 year, or 5 years) for having made the purchase? If not, it's probably a waste.

----Taking a trip over the weekend to visit my sister : I think I'd be happier for having done so - good memories.
----Getting drunk at a bar : I wouldn't be any happier 6 months later.
----Having a few drinks at a bar with friends: I'd still be glad we got together and caught up on things
----Buying a Starbucks "coffee" for seven dollars : I wouldn't even remember it
----Paying off debt early : I'd be less stressed later - a good thing.
----Buying a brand new car instead of a gently used car in good condition: in a year there'd be no difference in my general happiness.


Just taking a few seconds to imagine your-self in six months with and with-out something is a step that will help a lot. There's nothing wrong with buying things that will truly make your life better, but too many people confuse lasting happiness with momentary pleasure.

I think it takes time to learn moderation, especially when it's a special interest you're trying to control.

Special interests are integral to who we are as people, and it makes little sense to try to get rid of them because they serve such useful functions for us. They are play, relaxation, stress control, and can serve as bridges to other people and to the rest of the world.

The special interest is something you need, and you do what you do for a reason. It is something that benefits you. But it can go too far--for example, for you, it would go too far if you got into debt purchasing dolls and could not figure out how to moderate your spending.

It's difficult to figure out where you stop getting benefits and start getting drawbacks. Usually, the drawbacks start long before the benefits stop, and that means that somehow you have to figure out where your balance point is.

Praying does help. There's a lot of good advice, a lot of wisdom, in the Bible. You know, "Love others as you love yourself"? That assumes that you do love yourself. You have to take care of yourself enough so that you can do the things you were meant to do, and part of taking care of yourself is working on your hobby, because you need the things that the hobby grants you. It's not wasteful indulgence any more than eating a good meal or getting a night's rest is. In fact, perhaps those dolls are going to help you help another person some day. Maybe you'll make a friend, or help someone, because of that mutual interest. Or maybe it'll just be a source of relaxation to you, so that you can do unrelated, but useful, things.

Ask yourself--What are the things I can do that fulfill my mission, use my talents, help my community, support my neighbors? Those are your goals. Use your special interest to pursue your goals.

I don't think communicating with God is some mystic experience--or, needn't be, really. I don't trust my feelings and intuitions very much, but thankfully, I don't think I have to. God gave us brains for a reason, and there are a lot of basic principles that we can apply. Following God's will doesn't have to involve getting a prophetic mission and going off to who-knows-where to do something glamorously dangerous; in fact, it usually doesn't. It's more like common sense, taking opportunities as they come, and applying things like "Love one another", to your daily life. Following God's will doesn't have to involve anything mystical at all. It can mean, "Hey, I'm good at this thing; I can do this useful thing with it." Wisdom. Everyday stuff. Not that you're ever going to be perfect at it; nobody is. But hey, even partial success will do some good, and God knows we're fallible.

I do this a lot. It works and is almost as important to my functioning as my many lists. The first time I used it was after my first husband died. He had told me that he knew that the dog would die right after he did. It was a week later. Larry had requested that both he and Dogger be cremated. Well, I had so little money after he died, and at the time [probably still the same] it cost MORE to cremate a dog than a human because the law was that they had to be cremated the same way as humans but not in a human crematorium. I SO could not afford it, but I had promised Larry. People were saying that I would be foolish to spend the little money I had on cremating the dog, especially since I was in my third tri-mester of pregnancy and had two teens to take care of.

Then someone sat me down and said "Vicky, if you spend that $500 on cremating the dog to honor your husbands wishes, how will you feel about you and your childrens lives in five years?" Dogger was cremated [ he and Larry are in cans in the closet, still, at Larrys request. Another dog, rozy has since joined them]

I will never regret that decision and use that process for many decisions in my life.

I love me some special interest paraphernalia.

As a kid, I piled up more dolls and stuffed animals than go through your average Goodwill in six months. OK, it took me 14 years, but I had a seriously embarrassing collection.

As a teenager, I piled up about 150 6-hour videocassettes of recorded episodes of MASH. It wasn't ENTIRELY compulsive-- there was method to my madness; I was trying to collect all 251 episodes, and it just happened to take three years of taping to get the elusive "Sometimes You Hear the Bullet." I caught it a couple of times, but either the audio was messed up or the signal quality was exceptionally poor. I realize now that I could have cut the volume by quite a bit had I taken the time to rewind and record over episodes I already had multiple copies of. At about $2.50 a tape, that was an expensive obsession in 1993 dollars. Would I had realized that there would be these things called DVDs, and they would release entire seasons of old TV shows for about $20 a pop. Finally getting rid of those videocassettes was a long, crowded drive to the Earth911 collection facility with a carful of kids.

As a young adult, over the course of 5 years, I piled up an entire three-shelf unit full of books on various religions. I have no clue what the total cost was, as I bought most of them secondhand; if I totaled up the cover costs, it would have been about $800. I don't know if that's a sin before God or not; plenty of normal people spend more than $200 a year indulging their hobbies, and I did learn a lot about religion. Even though the special interest has passed, I still read and refer to the ones I didn't donate to the library's book store during the last move.

Currently, I spend a fair bit on books pertaining to self-sufficiency, construction, gardening, medical skills, sewing, and cooking. I'm trying hard to be more restrained than I was with the religion thing; in five years' time I've only amassed about a shelf and a half. That spending is tempered by the need to buy tools for various projects (though all are multi-use items) and to work on storing extra food, personal hygiene supplies, et cetera et cetera.

I wonder about the same thing a fair bit these days. How much is special interest, how much is just material greed, failing to trust God for my needs and those of my family, et cetera et cetera.

I guess whether it's a sin or not depends on how it impacts your life. Do you spend irresponsibly, such that buying things related to your interest comes before paying the bills, buying groceries, maintaining your vehicle/paying bus fare?? Or do you indulge your interests with disposable income?? If you were faced with a choice between helping a friend/relative in real need and buying a new doll, what would you do??

I don't think God is necessarily against ALL material pleasures when He says not to store up treasures in this world. I just don't think He's a real big fan of putting material treasures ahead of needs, or of giving a hand to your fellow man in legitimate need, or (perhaps most of all) of having material pleasures supercede a living relationship with Him.

Christianity is a wonderful religion; I have studied many, practiced a few, and come to the conclusion that Christianity seems to be in the main the most pro-social religion around. It is, for that reason, the one with which I tend to identify. It does, however, have a couple of flaws (all religions, being human creations, do). One of the major ones is a tendency among some of its adherents to use and misuse guilt, judgment, and references to sin in the interest of controlling the thoughts, behavior, and loyalty of other adherents.

Sorry for taking too long to answer, i didn't saw your reply.
Well, it took me years to finally have a solid thought about what this "God told me" thing really mean.
But from what i understood asking a lot of people about this is that it doesn't mean that God's voice was literally heard by them. They just meant that they "somehow" felt what to do or what to say in a biblical way.
I never use this sentence because to me it still doesn't make sense saying that "God told me something" if i haven't actually heard His voice. But still, what i think is that He kinda show us or make us think about what he want us to know on that moment. And this actually happens in a lot of simple situations on our day life just like Callista stated in a very nice way up there.
So yeah, somehow "God speak" to us but it is not in a literal way.