Every so often, I get what I call ‘gear envy’ and think I must buy some new electronic gadget or other.

Sometimes I look up pro audio and synth equipment on eBay, thinking I’ll update my music studio (even as I gradually sell-off my old, unused gear). There are a number of shiny new synths with lots of knobs and blinking lights I tell myself would re-ignite my desire to write songs again.

Recently, I thought it would be a good idea to get a Wi-Fi enabled PDA, such as the Palm Tungsten C, so that I could check my email or look-up something whenever I’m at a cafe or public space with wireless access. The only thing is, I don’t go to local cafes very often. The only email I receive anymore is from spammers or automated news services (I get only a few personal emails on any given week anymore). And, I imagine web browsing on such a small screen wouldn’t be all that smooth. Needless to say, it’s another unecessary purchase.

Just today, I got it in my head I should find a digital voice recorder so that I could dictate my random thoughts while driving on trips (which I toyed around with a couple of years ago using a mini-cassette recorder) and transfer the files to a computer for voice recognition translation. There are a number of reasons why this isn’t immediately necessary either, least of which is I haven’t been going on many trips.

Whenever I think it’s the equipment (rather than me) that contains the essence of creativity, I tell myself to stand back, wait a while, and let the delusion pass-on-by. As a remedy, perhaps I should just go on more trips (sans gadgets) and talk to myself in the car after sitting in that exotic cafe in some far-off locale. That can happen.