opnet [OpNet] The Nova Definition of Luxury

[Li Ai Jun Yen]

I know this might seem a strange question to most of you, but I am wondering what novas consider luxurious and impoverished.

Until recently, I came from a job that could be considered menial by nova standards, one that I had held before and after eruption for over a decade. I was paid a standard wage that was in the lower end of the five figures, and considered myself prosperous, because I was born in extremely impoverished circumstances.

This changed when I left my job and took up with Nan Ho - Procyon. I have been to his home and to the Phoenix Room.

Both have shown me the sheer amount of luxury novas live in. But you treat it as normal, and even your due.

I am asking this to understand my own kind better.

Thank you for answering.

[Mr Frost]

In my somewhat exuberant youth I often found myself attracted to the trappings of refinement. At a particularly unpleasant juncture of my life I found it necessary to reconsider this near obsession along with the basic tenets of my thinking. Although it took some time and more than a few false starts I eventually found a means of understanding and growing comfortable with who I am rather than who I thought I should be. I mention this only to put my answer in context.

One man's luxury is another's man's tarnished bric-a-brac of questionable taste as you've eloquently demonstrated in your own writing. What I seek now it to keep occupied not by distractions but by that which I find interesting. The advances in computer technology alone have made it possible to store entire libraries on something no larger than a sugar cube. While it lacks the warm familiarity of a beloved book, it places the works of ages at my fingertips with only a few simple commands. This is something I count as unparalleled luxury. The cost? Less than I would have paid for a single first printing edition.

Beyond that I can honestly say what I acquire are those things that suit my needs as closely as possible. I do buy expensive shirts because the fit and wear is far superior to mass produced merchandise. I do not buy unusually expensive automobiles because the engineering is not superior within the range of my needs.

[Erin 'Stellar' Donovan]

Well, being that the amount of time from when I erupted to entering the XWF could probably be counted in hours, I thought it was pretty typical of novas. Here I was, signing a 7 figure contract, bringing home a million buck for losing a fight and being around other novas that did the same.

I mean, you see the novas on the OpNet, the elites making big bucks, the Novox starts and so on, so I just assumed that the little lump of flesh in your head popping would open the gates with fortune. My only real exposure to other novas were the other XWF Warriors, so I thought my financial situation was pretty commonplace.

It wasn't till nearly a year later that I started really meeting novas outside the XWF and had my little paradigm shattered. I thought it was so damn easy for me to make millions, that it would be for any nova. Apparently, I was wrong.

But even for all the money I make, I still wouldn't saw I live a overly luxurious life. I bought a nice house (certainly not a ‘mansion’) and a nice car. I bought a house in Big Bear and built a small facility for me to train there. But over all, not much has changed. I still shop at the same place, my furniture and such does not consist of $100,00 rugs or whatever. I save money, I put it back into the family business and I donate to charities and do charity work. I help people out.

That’s not to say that I do not enjoy the idea of being able to fly some friends to my fight first class and put them up in a nice hotel. It’s always nice to know I can do that and actually do it from time to time, but if you were to see my home or the like, you wouldn’t think I make as much as I do.

I work, train, go to school and study, and those who know me know my strong work ethic. I do enjoy going clubbing with friends on occasion though as well. It’s always good to blow off steam after finals or celebrate a victory in the Zone. Hell, it was over a year before I even saw the Amp Room/Phoenix Room.

[Ptesan-Wi]

I think my take on luxury is a bit different. For me, luxury was Wakinyan turning the bathing basin into a sauna at will. I already miss that.

But all things considered, I can't complain. I have a snug home with a soft bed, I have all the ingredients for healthy and tasty food at my fingertips (literally, when I'm working my garden), I have clean air and big sky, and I have a family that is the entire Lakota people.

The only thing more that I could want, I can't have until it comes home to me again. And there's no use crying over that; what must be endured, will be endured.

[Matryoshka]

Luxuries.. What do I call a luxury. Well if it can be bought with money I can have it if I want it. Money has stopped being an issue to me a long time ago. I think the last time I wanted something and lack of money was an issue was 1999.

Now I live a life devoid of any needs besides the ones I impose on myself. I will tell you this much, it is most amusing to buy a new car rather than refill another car.

[Neil Preston]

Li Ai Jun Yen, I imagine I've experienced a fraction of what you've been through. I was raised with the expectation of following as much education as I wanted, yet worked a hard day's labor for a pot-luck dinner. One difference must be that I was raised with the belief that intelligence and drive would allow any person to rise to whatever economic level they desire.

I don't claim that money doesn't matter to me; only that it isn't a primary concern for me.

[Mithril]

Material possessions will only weigh you down. I have a laptop and a phone, and that's all I need. Everything else is just psychic static.

[Hugin]

My idea of luxury. Being able to live according to my desires and not under the thumb of another being's desires.

[The White Rat]

I do not like luxury. To me luxury represents the trappings of baseline society.

I prefer impovershment, because to baseline society, it is undesirable.

[Leliel]

Luxury is a state of mind. I don't need things to make my life fulfilling. Also, living in what baselines consider luxury is an invitation to greed. Greed is never a good thing.

[Dreamer]

Oh, such great thinkers. Such great high points.

Things you own, wind up owning you.

I think freedom is not a right.

I want it because it is what they don't.

It is all in the head.

What is good for me, may be bad for you.

Oh the Deep thoughts and deep thinkers. I have to sit down and think this one over. Wait..I don't really care. Li Ai Jun Yen luxury to me is the fact I can at any time day or night enjoy a good live show.

[Li Ai Jun Yen]

I thank you for your insights, all of you.

[Velvet]

Quote:

Originally posted by The White Rat:
I do not like luxury. To me luxury represents the trappings of baseline society.

I prefer impovershment, because to baseline society, it is undesirable.

How rebellious. ...And how sad. You hate them, and you still let the objects of your hatred control your lifestyle. It makes you sound like a teenager lashing out at his parents. It's a "They don't like heavy metal, so I'm going to blast it at full volume, even though it makes my ears bleed" reaction. It does seem to fit your 'schtick' though. After all, baseline society tends to frown on homicidal maniacs as well, so at least you're consistent.

Li Ai Jun Yen- I think I just figured out who you are, actually... The name threw me off. At any rate, to me, luxury is anything rare and precious- whether of material value or no. I appreciate physical comforts, and have no reason to deny that I'm a bit of a hedonist, so I enjoy silk sheets, a good glass of wine, a full wardrobe, and all things that appeal to the senses. I think there's a bit of a difference (personally) though, between 'luxury' and 'opulence.' Both are self-indulgent (to a lesser or greater degree), but luxury to me is enjoyment of the act or object itself, while opulence is just the satisfaction of a desire for showiness and superficiality.

Being impoverished, in my opinion, is the most basic state of life. You're concerned only with survival, rather than comfort, because you don't have the time, energy, or hope. Your priorities are fairly simple, but since you don't have anything, you can't lose anything, either. I've been there myself. Actually, now that I think about it, that's probably why I am a bit of a sensualist.

[Machina]

Not surprisingly, you've received a bunch of replies from tin gods trying desperately to prove they're "not like that" and really just regular joes, and a grab bag of admissions of rampant, pigfucking wealth from people who are so fucking vacant and knuckle-dragging that they think "irony" is how your shirt feels after you press it. "Hillbillies with money", like my father used to describe the southern oil magnates who would vacation in New York.

The truth as I see it, Li Ai Jun Yen, is that luxury is an ever-raising bar. It's more than what you're accustomed to. That's why, to you, a five-figure salary fills you with appreciation for what you have, whereas most Elites wouldn't piss on that amount if it was on fire. You have a healthy sense of national and global perspective, where most fuckers out there whine like fucking children if their drinks are served late or if the price of gas goes up.

Likewise, poverty is just the opposite. It's the low end of the scale. National economic factors aside, poverty is a relative thing, relative to your environment. Nobody likes starving or sleeping outside or having to sell yourself to survive. Some people don't have that option, and to us, they live in poverty. To someone like the CEO of General Electric, working class families from Michigan are the ones in poverty. And poor people from China or India or Eritrea? Fuck them, they don't even exist.

What you're seeing, lady, isn't normal, and it sure as hell isn't their "due." It's the only possible result of a world that rewards randomly and for no reason. Spoiled fucking children whose wildest dreams are given wings, to fly and fuck and drink and snort and purchase every goddamned thing in sight. It's just the same as those rich cocksuckers who used to come to my blasted little town for vacation, driving out the poor folks who lived there by increasing property values and buying up companies that shipped their interests overseas. Hillbillies with money.

Hold on to your perspective, girl. Don't let those fuckers make you lose sense of what seems to be a pretty healthy sense of where you stand in the world.

[GDP_ST]

I think my idea of luxury aligns very closely with Hugin's: Being able to live without answering to anyone I do not choose to.

Money, while despised by some Terats, is a simple enough resource for a Nova to acquire and can make existence, whilst not easier, at least free of the tedious questions such as "How do I find enough to eat?" or "Am I going to have to sleep in a noisy motel again?"

Machina's evident hatred of his own species notwithstanding, I agree with his assertation that having a node doesn't make wealth our 'due' in any moral or ethical sense.

However, having a node does mean that comfortable living (by however means you choose to define it) is easy for almost any nova to attain. That being the case, it is our due in the sense of pure ability. If we can live comfortably, especially without causing undue suffering to others, why not do so?

The only thing I consider important to remember is that money, like a lot of baseline authority, only has value because it is perceived to. Relying on such an illusion as the sole basis of one's happiness is foolish in the extreme. Those who chase money are chasing a will-o-the-wisp.

[Y.T.]

Procyon, you think Machina hates novas? I don't think so, I think he hates the way the world treats them. He doesn't like the seemingly random chance effect of who is and who is not a nova. I respect him on that. That is if were the case. I too think that many people who become novas should not be novas and many who aren't should be.

But to the topic. I think luxuries are hard to define for novas, and the safest thing to say is that we live interesting lives. I find the most enjoyable things to be things that I can really feel. Part of my abilities is the fact that tactually I feel things in a rather mute way. Take the weather, anything you find on earth just don't bother me.It all basically feels the same. I know how hot or cold it is, but the simple fact is that it feels like someone else is feeling it and not me.

[z-Carver]

Quote:

Originally posted by Y.T.:
Procyon, you think Machina hates novas? I don't think so, I think he hates the way the world treats them.

I think Machina just hates, but this line: "replies from tin gods" seems to speak for itself. If he doesn't hate, then he certainly does despise. And I'm sure that Procyon doesn't consider that sentiment any better than hating.

On the topic, I think that Luxury is earning enough money that I don't have to work every day. It's nice to get up in the morning, grab breakfast and crawl back into bed if I want to. That's luxury to me: survival without effort.

[Machina]

Big consolation prizes to Ms. Krueger and Divis Min, it looks like this weeks Pop Psychology award goes to Whitey. Like Nietzsche said, "Few are those who are dead that should still be alive, and many are those that are living but should be dead." Don't wrack your feeble little brains if the correlation doesn't come to you right away. How either of you arrived at such a lame-fuck conclusion should be beyond me, but seeing how you responded to the lady's question, it doesn't really surprise me. I ain't no self-loather and I don't hate or despise fuckin' mutants. I pity most of you fuckers, and the poverty of your empty fuckin' wealth. The thing I hate about you people is the sense of entitlement that seems to come hardwired into your tumor-addled fuckin' heads. Most of you are no better than retards winning the lottery. Most of you are exactly that.

And you, Divis Min, I can't fucking wait until your little lady realizes what a vapid, shallow fuck you are and wakes up to the fact that charity and benevolence aren't the same goddamn thing. You'll be taillights before you've got a chance to try and slime your way out of it.

[GDP_ST]

Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I rest my case.

[Machina]

When you tin gods use fucking emoticons, it drives me fucking crazy, you know that? Some of the kids I'll forgive, they haven't got the brain capacity god gave a fucking monkey, but you high-rolling Terat philosopher-king fucks, what's your excuse? Do you chew bubblegum and listen to Britney Spears, too? If you're the fucking vanguard of evolution, I'll happily drag my fucking knuckles.

[Leliel]

Britney Spears was/is a bubbleheaded cow. Only good thing about her is her skull is probably enough of a perfect vacuum to store antimatter...

Emoticons in general suck, They sucked when I first saw them used on the old Internet, and they still suck now.

[GDP_ST]

An excellent way of irritating odious people, though, don't you think? I find that a lot of things that held true on the old internet hold true on the OpNet.

Mind you, baiting Machina is kind of easy. Guess I was just feeling lazy today. My apologies for my languor.

[Machina]

In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king. He's also a grumpy son of a bitch.

[Mr Frost]

I prefer to rise above it. As noted by a 20th century writer of science fiction named Heinlein;

"This sad little lizard told me that he was a brontosaurus on his mother's side. I did not laugh; people who boast of ancestry often have little else to sustain them. Humoring them costs nothing and adds to happiness in a world in which happiness is always in short supply."

When the subject merits serious discussion and consideration I do not hesitate to point out the fallacies of the speaker or ask them to abstain from interjecting. When it is not so serious I can refrain from commenting on their... special... mindset.

[Machina]

Bullshit, Frosty. I say take the fuckers to task every goddamn time; it's the only way they'll ever fucking learn. Disillusionment, man. Some people deserve to have their fantasies shattered. And by "some people", I mean "all people". Doesn't mean you have to slit their throat with the shards, but nobody ever gained a damn thing by stayin' ignorant.

Good job quoting Heinlein, though. 'Starship Troopers' is a favorite.

[Mr Frost]

Its not an appropriate response to all situations. Signal to noise effect. People become desensitized then the observations are nothing more than background sound.

[Machina]

In all situations, yeah, Frosty, I think so. Just not for all people. Let other people be the soft touch, the diplomats. I'll be the mallet. I'm comfortable in that role.

[Leliel]

Thing I have noticed is there are three kinds of people. The Enlightened, Slapheads, and..... neutrals I guess?

Truly enlightened people have gotten beyond the ego-masturbation that requires them to be taken down a notch. Slapheads.... What can be said? You could talk to them until the day after doomsday and they will never get the point.

That leaves the people in the middle. If Machina is the Hammer and Frost the Diplomat, I guess my philosophy of how to deal with the egotistical is a bit between the two of them.

[Velvet]

Quote:

Originally posted by Leliel:
Thing I have noticed is there are three kinds of people.

Depending on who you ask, there are two, three, ten, or fifty kinds of people. It's easy to shove people into categories, lump them together based on this trait or that without delving into any deeper detail. ...It's also lazy.

Keeping it in terms of the topic, though, Miss Ai seems to be asking what the division is between the "haves" and the "have-nots"- not which side get stuck with someone's spite. Hell, at the moment, I'm pretty much flat busted, and I've never been rich... Enjoying nice things doesn't make me vacant, stupid, elitist, etc. It just means that when I have the opportunity to take pleasure in something in such a generally miserable world, I do so.

That last was to you by the way, DX.

[Harold 'Mythic' Anderson]

I thought I wanted expensive possessions and other things people normally apart of luxury... turned out that the only luxury I really want or need is Carver.

[Edison]

Sure, you think you find the woman you love, then you erupt with only the ability to glow multiple colors, she dumps you because you're too plain even though you are one in a million with a node. You try to end your life, jump off a building, OD, jump in front of cars, trains, buses, bullets, shoot yourself in the head, heart, stomach, etc... Figure out you can't even do that, yeah....

Luxury...I'm living luxurious if I can buy the booze I need to live.

[Leliel]

Nothing wrong with enjoying nice things. It's when greed comes on the scene that everything gets ballsed-up.

[Mr Frost]

Quote:

Originally posted by Velvet:
...It's also lazy.

A provacative statement. I would submit to you it is really only a mechanism to reduce an awkwardly large number to a manageable number.

And despite the unasked for title of diplomat I would draw your attention to the fact there are groupings. However special we may believe ourselves to be, or others may believe us to be, there are only an finite number of personality configurations. Depending on the values you are looking for people can be readily categorized by "types". The depth necessary to delve is dependent on the purposes that serve the intentions of the categorizer, and is sometimes deeper than the depth available in the individual being categorized.

On the topic, Leliel as made a key point. Greed is a poor substitute for judgment.

[The White Rat]

Edison, you sound like one tough hombre. If I was to do a quarter of the things you described, I would be dead. It seems like glowing isn't the only thing you have going for you. You sound almost indestructible. Take whatever woman you want, because there is nothing those monkeys can do to stop you.

[Erin 'Stellar' Donovan]

Indestructible does not mean unrestrainable.

[Blur]

I don't know if you're still looking for input, Ms. Li, but luxury seems to be a relative thing; especially when considering what everyone has said here. For example, your partner, Procyon, may one day consider his own furnishings to be below the standard of luxury; whereas I would consider the opportunity to savor a meal to be a decedent luxury.

And Machina's observation about how one's relative perspective of luxury changes as one's environment and resources change is quite apt; unfortunately it seems to have been overlooked in favor of other topics.

[Sandcaster]

For me, time is a luxury that is in rather short supply. There are simply never enough hours in the day, and a life of often unsatisfactory compromises is the result.

[Loge]

What would I call luxury? Oh some of you are going to have a field day with this but here you go.

After much thought I called Devries and made a request. We worked a deal that was part cash on the barrel head and part trade, the trade being the corporate version of community service. At the agreed upon time a mysterious nova with a name that I still can't say without thinking of old comic books appeared in front of me. To be honest she scared the shit out of me. One second she wasn't there and the next she was. Its not just the sudden appearance either. I knew from my contact with the New York Devries office just what this nova was capable of. She controls, manipulates and otherwise makes a bitch out of Time. That's a daunting thought when you you consider the ramifications. Anyway, here's this nova in my home. A god of the temporal gates. A master of chronal manipulation. However you want to say it. And she's getting paid by the subjective seconds she works for me. So she appears says hi, patts my aging dog on the head and then regresses the mutt to 6 months old.

Yes. I spent more money than a lot of people will ever see to make sure my dog is still around for another 15 years. The bill was larger than the price of my house and I borrowed every cent of it on a signature loan from a bank willing to give me the money only because I'm a nova. They didn't even need collateral, just medical proof that I was nova and paid my bills on time.

That's my definition of luxury.

[Tempest]

Wow, I guess my definition of luxury is pretty pedestrian by those standards.

Even at 17 I have a busy life. Between school, the GLBT peer supoport group I started and run as an extra curricular school program, my training with Don, and dealing with the all the attention and offers that being a Nova brings I have almost no time for myself.

Luxury for me is a little alone time. Just me, 10,00 feet in the air, zipping around at 1500 kilometers an hour. So far nothing beats that.

[Warren Verona]

As everyone has already stated several times, luxury seems to be a state of mind.

I honestly can say I agree with that.

I've been catered to, waited on hand and foot, and seen to that my every desire was fulfilled. Looking back, I know now even if I didn't relize it then that material goods, while they may seem keep you occupied and content they cannot fill certain voids that we all posses.

Basic desires, needs, and wants. Happiness obviously is among that list. Some may argue that what they have makes them happy and for them this may be true, but for how long? How long before we grow board of one object only to replace it with another, bigger, badder model. We've all done it.

What I have discovered (and I speak only for myself, glean what wisdom you may from it) is for me luxury was not wealth, fame, or power.

It was balance.

Balancing who and what I am within the world around me. I don't think about what I have, or don't have. Luxury, to all of us is something different. Be it Stellars material wealth, Hugin's desire for free thought and will, or White Rat's continued display of 'How Not To Be A Terat'.

Wasting our lives with worry is a luxury none of us can afford.

If you wake up pleased with who are, and you lay you head down at night with no regrets about who you are, then congrats, you're living in luxury.