A Rambling Revelation

I had an interesting revelation the other day. It happened as I was getting ready for bed. As is my custom most nights, I sat on the edge of the bed while I flossed, etc., thinking about the day and whether I had everything ready to go for the next morning. My train of thought was suddenly interrupted by the sound of wood cracking and a rapid decrease in the bed's elevation. Lo and behold, the wooden frame of the box spring had come off of the bed frame at some unknown juncture, and had slowly been bowing until I sat on that spot one too many times and it cracked in half.

That event was not a revelation in and of itself, but my reaction to it caused me to step back and realize how much I have been influenced by the culture I live in. After I had picked myself up, and TC and I had evaluated the damage, my thought process went as follows: First, I decided that we'd have to get a new mattress set. Then I remembered that the mattress itself is undamaged and only 5 years old, so I decided that we really only need a new box spring. We needed to sleep somewhere in the meantime, though, so we set about moving the things that we had been storing under the bed so that we could set the box spring directly on the floor, where the cracked wooden frame wouldn't matter until we got a new one.

Then it hit me. Why was my initial response to throw away the whole thing and get a new set? And why was I so quick to want to throw away this perfectly good box spring when all we had to do to make it work again was sit it on the floor instead of in a raised bed frame?

Our culture teaches us that people who sleep with their mattresses on the floor must be poor, since anyone who could afford one would obviously have a proper bed with a frame, and being poor is a very bad thing. It means that you have somehow failed as a person in the eyes of our highly materialistic society. But really, for anyone who doesn't have trouble sitting down or standing up from a low position, what purpose does a raised bed serve except as a status symbol?

Originally, beds were raised to avoid draughts, dirt and any little guests that might want to snuggle up with you while you slept. In most modern homes, these are no longer issues. For the majority of us, a bed frame has become a 'necessity' simply because that's just how most beds are. It's true, a raised bed provides extra storage, but my thought is, if we have to store it under the bed, do we really need it?

Now, I'm not knocking anyone for using a bed frame - there's nothing wrong with sleeping in a raised bed. That's not the point I'm trying to make. What struck me was that I had obviously been influenced by our culture's materialistic mindset to some extent, despite my efforts not to be, since the idea of keeping the mattresses on the floor didn't even cross my mind until I stopped and thought about it. My default position was the "chuck it and buy a new one" response.

*sigh*

I guess I haven't quite reached perfection after all ;o)