Make or Break Me

It has been pointed out that shopping is a stand-in for other, more alarming, desires. Of course this makes sense, since acquisition gets to the core of identity—it’s as if objects were blessed with intention and ownership consorted with destiny. People—friends, strangers—will know you, not by your kind or cruel deeds, but by your clothes. If they’re invited into your home, they’ll know you by your furniture. Idiosyncratic style offers shorthand explanations: this is what I like, so this is what I am. It follows, then, that certain objects should, by all rights, end up in the hands of the person to whom they belong. If rightful ownership begins with this kinship awareness, then the actual purchase of an object exists only as its echo; it is merely repercussive. When something that “has your name on it” doesn’t follow its rippling striped arc from creation to your pot of gold, it feels like your name—for a moment, at least—has been snatched away, too.
It's a narrow view of the world, ripe with self-entitlement. But it fits with our culture's fantasy that there's only one right person--the "intended"--who can round out a life.