To be, or not to be. That's as good a capsule description of indecision as I've ever come across. But what does it cost to actually be? Forget the metaphysics here. How much do we spend each day just being? Ourselves that is.

I'm not thinking of the top rung of Maslow's hierarchy, it's not self-actualisation I'm on about. It's much simpler: how much leaks out of purses and wallets just so we can be. Every morning, unfailingly, I leave the Tube Station outside where I work and head in the opposite direction, until I find a coffee shop. Ignoring any physiological, possibly psychological, needs that may also be present, my work day does n't start until I've gone through the paper and sunk a capuccino. This is me being me. And that costs me a couple of quid every day. Get the sense of being I'm aiming for?

Another example of beingness. I like chocolate; it's my glass of red wine, or pint before getting the train home, or cigarrette on the walk back from the shops. I don't do any of those three (well, an occasional wine), but when I break open that chocolate it's me being me, just as any of those other things are for others being themselves.

Confused? I'll try to explain this way: it's not existential being, or philosophical being, it's plain old human beings being, well, human. Doing things for no especial reason; you just do them, because if you did n't, it just would n't be you.

I reckon I spend around a fiver a day on being. Would I really be better off if I took a flask of coffee into work and read a freebie newspaper?