Winnie the Pooh

Most personality tests based on the works of A.A. Milne put me squarely in the Eeyore and Owl camps, with a bit of Rabbit thrown in for good measure. But there is a definite Pooh Bear me. The me that reads menus BEFORE it goes to restaurants, so it can enjoy the anticipation; the me that makes pancakes every weekend; the me that becomes distracted in meetings by thinking about food, the way some people might think about lovers. But it's not just the food aspect.

I dislike being uncomfortable generally. If there is something better to be achieved by being uncomfortable temporarily (looking better, earning more), I can grin and bear it, but I've never been able to swallow the idea of deprivation for the sake of deprivation. I don't understand why Thomas More wore a hair shirt, or how some people can just forget about food. My apparent ascetic tendencies result from the fact that I do not want what I don't have. Most people may desire meat and television, but I do not. When I want something, if I can afford it and have done proper research, I will buy it immediately. I see no reason to wait for a holiday.

My lack of asceticism sometimes makes me feel prematurely old or strangely young. I like (and have always liked) eating chocolates with an Agatha Christie novel; walking in the woods; swinging. Raves, drag racing, and spin the bottle just sound...uncomfortable.

Even my social relations are influenced by comfort. I give money to charity because I can't imagine how awful it would be to lack dental care or food. I am friends with people because I derive pleasure from their company, and they seem to enjoy mine.

This may all sound rather self-indulgent. Of course, there's always the incalculable calculus concerning how forgoing chocolate today might increase my lifespan later. Maybe some individuals are constitutionally predisposed to think about higher things than food and warmth and comfortable shoes. Even Christian hedonism recently had its day, although granted the main tenet was that enjoying God was the ultimate indulgence. Despite all the foreboding in the Bible about getting too attached to earthly goods, I have a hard time imagining a God who created chocolates and mystery novels and down comforters just to tempt us to sin.