A Different Culture of Abundance

There’s a part of me that I’ve noticed feels uncomfortable when I have visited California in the past about the abundance that is available to you if you have access to money. Like there’s a voice in my head that says “am I really allowed almond butter with chia seeds and maple syrup crunchies as an everyday item?! Why? Surely this is unnecessary?” And then a kind of childish candystore feeling too, but it feels tacky, like candy floss.

At first I characterised this as the part of me that is Puritan from English history, but I’ve realised I mischaracterised that. It’s the part of me that is Hungarian and was raised by Hungarian villagers. We have a culture of only cooking and buying what is enough, and a bit more. The culture of “treats” is very strong. E.g. my grandfather would bring home raspberries and it was a “treat” that we would get excited about and savour every last bit. My grandmother would bake amazing home made cakes using very simple ingredients, and it would take her the whole afternoon, and we would beg her not to because we were worried we’d become fat over summer, and we didn’t want her to be manually toiling to make us treats, but my gosh were they amazing.

And there’s something about that, that leaves an actual sense of guilt and wrongness at the more extreme end of the spectrum of consumerism and “abundance”. And I’m actually questioning if that’s a bad thing at all.

I miss my grandma.