#litraturelover

[a-unknownperson]

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[khadka007]

Lost my heart in you fireflies #mirakee #thoughts #mymindspeaks #words #litraturelover # (at Kathmandu, Nepal)

[thehealingdance]

Your Relationship with Things (and why it’s a good idea to think about it)

Have you ever thought about your relationship with your possessions? I mean, really thought about it. Beyond the reasons for owning something because you need it, or because it’s pretty, or because someone gave it to you, or whatever. Beyond the “do you own your possessions or do they own you?”

Like really, truly, thought about your relationship with the things you own.

There’s ownership, of course. Obviously. But there is also the question of what ownership means. What it means to you, personally. What it looks like. What it feels like.

After all, there are different types of ownership. People own cars and they own pets and they own furniture. Some people love their cars the way other people love their pets. What about furniture?

Or appliances?

Yeah, there’s a difference, isn’t there. You own a pet and you own a fridge, but your relationship is different. I certainly don’t talk to my fridge the way I would talk to a cat.

Makes me wonder, though. Maybe I should talk to my fridge the way I would talk to a cat. After all, it’s all consciousness. The external world is a reflection of my internal world. So treating a fridge like a soulless object - what does that say about the configuration of my consciousness? Where do I treat myself like a soulless object? Where do I treat consciousness as if it were soulless?

And what are the repercussions of that?

A question to think about.

*

Coming back to the Relationship with Things, here’s another question to consider: How do you relate to the things you own? I mean, when you pick up things, when you handle your possessions. How is it done? With love, or anger or disinterest - or annoyance, for when you have to fold your stupid laundry again?

But wait, they are the things you own. They are yours. In a way, they are you. Reflections of you in the external world ...

Yeah. Suddenly makes you look at all those pesky socks waiting to be sorted into pairs and folded differently, doesn’t it? This is you out there. A reflection of you.

Who told you that you are a pesky obligation and a burden to take care of?

Of course typing this is a reflection of my inner world, too. So that question isn’t just something I’m throwing out at you. I am looking into a mirror here. And asking myself.

*

Coming back to the contemplation of your relationship with your possessions again - what about status symbols? Big house, big car, expensive shiny things. Material objects acquired to show the owner’s power, wealth, and high social status.

Hmmm.

You know, for fun I looked up the definition of “status symbol” in a couple of dictionaries, and I think the Cambridge Dictionary’s is telling: “ a thing that people want to have because they think other people will admire them if they have it .”

So, in terms of your relationship with things ... seems to me, a status symbol is less of a symbol and more of a prop. A material thing to prop you up, because you feel, for some reason, that you cannot stand on your own.

And the more props you have, the bigger you are, the higher you stand.

At what cost?

Because, to be honest, people living in super mansions or driving big cars never communicate “I’m rich and awesome!” to me, but always “Look how small I feel inside!”

Ties in with what Karen Kingston said about multimillionaires being the most insecure people she knows. It’s not just fear of losing some possession, there. Because it’s not a possession, it’s a prop. And if you lose your prop, you’ll fall.

If you lose your prop ... maybe you even lose yourself?

*

How much of your identity is tied up in things?

*

Doesn’t have to be those types of status symbols, either, by the way. Can be anything. For example, I only realised a while ago how much of my identity was tied up in books. By which I mean: owning lots and lots of books. Yes, I am an avid reader, they’re not just there for show. But when the mere thought of donating a study edition of a Shakespeare play sends you into a tailspin, well. There’s obviously more to it than just a book. So I sat down and asked myself: Where did that come from? What is my relationship with that bloody book that the thought of donating it terrifies me so much?

And as I sat and stared at my bookshelves and thought about what I was feeling - there came the understanding that this wasn’t about a book. This was about part of my identity. Bookseller, MA in English Lit even - how could I possibly not have Shakespeare on my shelf? Right? A classic! The classic, almost, even. Like, I had to have that book, because that’s what people who love books and read and have Masters’ degrees in literature are like.

Right?

So if I gave that book away - then I was violating that unwritten code of identity for booklovers and litraturelovers and MA-in-English-Lits. I would lose my identity.

Losing identity feels very much like dying.

Hence the tailspin.

No, I don’t own that book anymore. Or any other Shakespeare, incidentally. Because I am more than a booklover and a literaturelover and an MA-in-English-Lit. I don’t need this material object to anchor my identity in this reality, either. Or to prove it.

Best thing, I do not only know this on a mental level - I feel the truth of it.

Which doesn’t mean I don’t still love books or wouldn’t move into Aziraphale’s bookshop in a heartbeat. Just that I know, and feel, that I am more than that. Much, much more.

And so I don’t need this outside proof, this placeholder in the material world. It’s gone - and being gone, it has opened the space for something else. (More books!) Space to be. Expansion. Growth. The space to grow into a new shape, a new “identity”, if you wish. One that fits me much better, that is much lighter (than a book) - and that has the space to expand even further.

And that? Is awesome.

*

Incidentally, to come back to the big house and big car type of status symbol. I’d say in a way they are status symbols - symbols of an inner state. Symbols of an inner state so vulnerable and small, so empty and fearful, it requires loads of Things to fill the emptiness, loads of Stuff to feel safe and protected.

So the status symbol is, in the end, a symbol of fear.

And I do not believe that it benefits anybody, in the long term, neither emotionally nor mentally nor, ultimately, physically, if they live in or drive around in or wear a symbol of their fear.

*

Just a thought.

*

So, to bring this meandering exploration to a close...

There are a lot of questions we can ask ourselves about our relationship. And I believe it is a good thing to actually do so, and to contemplate the answers we discover.

The things we own, the things that surround us and that we surround ourselves with are more than simply material objects. They are reflections of us, of who we are. They are there for a reason. They serve a purpose.

Understanding our relationship with those material objects can shed a new light on our relationship with ourselves - and on who we are. You know. Beyond the Things we own.