Possessions’ mystique translates into different values
Commentary by ADAM TANOUS
Material items and our relentless pursuit of them have a tendency to
clutter up our lives. As we get older and more desperate for the truth of our lives, the
last thing we need is clutter obscuring our vision.
Possession starts at a young age.
My son, who is under 2 years old, seems to be fixated on the concept.
When we are in the yard working, he will tell me no fewer than seven times, "I need
that," referring to whatever tool I happen to be holding. Usually on the eighth or
ninth, "I need that," I hand it over to him. With tool in hand, he immediately
looks up at me with a crooked, self-satisfied smile and says, "Mine!"
Initially it was, as with so many parenthood experiences, slightly
alarming. How could materialism have seeped into his little life so quickly? Well, after a
few rounds of the "I need that" game, it occurred to me that it had nothing to
do with materialism and everything to do with identity. Possession of anything is
predicated upon a sense of individuality. Without the latter, the former is meaningless.
By claiming a stake on any given thing around him, a child is saying to the world,
"Hey, I am here. I am distinct from all of the others." It is a way of
reaffirming one’s toehold in a big world.
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Adults and their possessions are a more complicated affair. The hue
of the relationship, like a diamond we might covet, depends upon the angle at which we
look at it.
Instead of reaffirming our identities, possessions can too often
define and consume us. Because "things" cost money, the accumulation of them is
a signal to others that we have somehow found our way to money. And in modern societies,
money is equated, rightly or wrongly, with value.
Big possessions like houses and boats are often deemed a reflection
of a person’s status. Of course, it is not always an appropriate connection. I know
plenty of people who have contributed very little to the world as a whole yet have been
wildly compensated for it. Likewise, others who have given all of themselves to society
are struggling to pay their heating bills.
Too often we make the logical leap from, "he drives a valuable
car," to "therefore, he is a valuable person." The inverse assumption (he
does not drive a valuable car, therefore he is not a valuable person) can be just as
dangerous. Drawing conclusions about others and their possessions can lead one through
trap doors.
One can just as easily suffer self-delusion when it comes to the
items we own. No doubt, nice things are fun to use. They are esthetically pleasing, they
work well, they cause us no grief. It is when we begin to equate the nice things with
character that we get into murky territory. It is one thing to enjoy our possessions. It
is another to see ourselves through the prism of them.
It would seem that we spend a lot of our lives growing up. By growing
up I mean truly understanding ourselves, those close to us, and perhaps a small slice of
the world around us. Material items and our relentless pursuit of them have a tendency to
clutter up our lives. As we get older and more desperate for the truth of our lives, the
last thing we need is clutter obscuring our vision.
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To avoid appearing too moralistic, I have to say that possessions are
not all bad. Oddly enough, the inanimate items we drag through life can sometimes have a
real effect on us. They can become objects of our affection.
Certainly, most things that we use are purely functional. A
few items in our lives, however, seem to capture our attentions and thoughts. Sometimes
they are the things that connect us to other times and people when our bridge to them has
long since washed away.
I have, for example, an old French corkscrew that had been my
mother’s for all of her life. There was nothing particularly special about it except
the fact that she loved it. She always raved about how well it worked, how old and simple
and dependable it was. It was just a corkscrew, but somehow she made it hers. So
years and years later, it sits in my drawer. Every single time I pick it up I think of my
mother. Invariably, a memory of her spins off from that moment. For an instant, she is
there, a full force in my life again. It is a case of an object opening a door to real
thoughts and memories. Certainly those thoughts and memories are always there inside us,
but, without some nudge from the material world, they might be irretrievable.
Once, I casually mentioned to my son that the corkscrew belonged to
his grandmother. Now every time he sees it he reminds me, "That’s
Paula’s." Now even he has a connection, however faint, to a woman he never had
the chance to meet. And so that corkscrew has bridged three generations, tied together two
lives that might have been too far apart in time to connect otherwise.
So why do certain things in our lives (for me: a corkscrew, an old
bell my brother and I came running to as children, a baby cup) touch us? I think it is
because certain possessions simply endure. They survive all of our traumas and
dislocations. They are there in the corner of the room for all of those years, for all of
the moments, good and bad. And because they are always there, they offer us a shred of
security, some semblance of permanence and continuity in an otherwise transient life.
I tend to think of those special items in our lives like the blankets
toddlers carry around. In actuality, we don’t truly "possess" anything. We
just drag things around with us for a while. Ultimately, they outlive us.
The magic of certain possessions is that, eventually, people rub off
on them. Just as a blanket will always hold the essence of the child long after he has
left the room, our oldest, dearest possessions become imparted with the emotions of our
lives.
When we finally leave the world we leave our possessions behind. They
have no place where we are going. They do have a place here, however. They remain for
others to find, pick up, rub between their fingers. They help them wonder about all that
they cannot touch.
