Twice a year I enjoy shelling out $20 for the newest issues of Purple Fashion and Fantastic Man. The fact that these publications are five times as much as an issue of GQ is much, if not all of the appeal. I rationalize that I’m being given access to ideas and inspirations five times too elite and expensive for the average trend-hound.

In the same snobby vein, I’ve promised myself already a bottle of Fantastic Man’s upcoming fragrance from Byredo, having never sampled the scent. I mean, what has its actual scent got to do with it?

Should Fantastic Man: The Cologne actually smell intriguing and edgy once I unwrap my delivery then that’ll be icing…but, in all honesty, its the secret feeling of elitism and rarity that I’ll be spending my money on. Just as when I buy the periodical that spawned it.

This is materialism at its most crass and callow, but also its most innate, no? Fortunately, I approach only the rare purchase in this reckless manner. I’ll explore the more noble and less shameful modes of materialism in future Treasury entries, but for now I’m curious:

What items/genres of material goods do readers buy recklessly – when a daring disregard for price and practicality is integral to the power of the purchase?

From my viewpoint, we’re entering the 4th official month of our country’s full-blown financial freakout. In mid-November the situation began to affect me personally. Not on a disastrous level, but on one that was decidedly bothersome.

The upside to my specific experience is that I was hit by distinctly separate blows. With each strike, as more and more was being taken from me, I realized that, absolutely, everything could be taken away from me at any point. I chose in an instant to stop mourning what had been taken, and stop fearing what could be taken still, and instead to start savoring and treasuring more deliberately all that I still had.

But not even the warm n’ fuzziest lessons learned in the depths of this recession-depression could rid me entirely of my materialism. No catastrophe could ever strip me of that, I’d dare say, because its a virtue, I’m realizing–my longheld materialism. Like honesty, courage, wit or wisdom, materialism too is un-strippable, and can better one’s world and the world of those near and dear to him.

For to artfully understand how to locate, incorporate, and appreciate the objects and products that define how our lives look and sound, smell and taste–how they literally and emotionally  feel–I think that is truly important and brilliant, and yes, virtuous! Especially in drab and un-fab times like these.

I’ve always treasured things but starting today I’m taking the practice more seriously. I am a Treasurer with a capital T, and I wear this title proudly.