Possessions

I wish to discuss the sentiment behind Tyler Durden's quote in Fight Club -"the things you own end up owning you". I do not wish to confuse the concept of wealth and that of possessions as I deem them to be two quite separate things. Although I am not, nor ever have been wealthy, I am by no measure poor. This is because I live in a prosperous country and have the support of my friends and family. A poor person is someone who has no means to obtain either, food, shelter or clothing, or struggles to do so. I have never had to worry about these things and so I would not like to presume how that must feel. To me the idea of wealth is that of potential, a sum of money represents the potential to do things and a persons position in life affords them possibilities unavailable to others. I have never had much in the way of money but simply because of where I was born, and to whom I was born, I cannot ever be really poor.

A great deal of possessions, or even a very valuable one, may serve to make you wealthy but it is not the case that possessions necessarily make someone wealthy or that a wealthy person must have possessions. I cannot speak from experience of the hardships of poverty but I am able to offer my thoughts on possessions having had both some, and none, for periods of my life.

While still living at home I began to accumulate stuff. I was encouraged to work by my parents to gain "life experience". As I had no outgoings I started to collect things such as CDs and liquor with my earnings. I find it very hard to express the pleasure I gained in adding to my collections, an odd form of vanity perhaps, but dangerously addictive. The more stuff you have, the more you seem to feel you need. Sometimes you would go out with intent to treat yourself and find a reasonably priced gem for your collection and this would leave you with the sort of buzz you get from winning the bottom rung prize in the lottery - short lived as it is not a personal achievement. Other times however you would just get something for the sake of it only later to be gut-shot by the realisation of what you had done, what a silly waste of money and effort, which leaves you with that sickly sinking sensation in the whole torso.

The pleasures and pains of purchase for the sake of purchase aside we continue to grow our collections to nourish our superimposed pride. I was not so aware of myself in those times and continued to act the good consumer throughout my university years. The habit of my consumerism was lapsing in that period due to my having outgoings and less time together with all my stuff, but it was not to be revoked until I finished and began life "in the real world" as the mentors of our youth loved to call it.

I had come to realise, only too late, that the reason I slacked my way through the education system is that I didn't have a passion for the way it was done. I was capable of putting effort into something provided that I was deeply interested in it. I therefore concluded that I should try my hand at the thing I enjoyed most which was games. The following two years in which I solely played games opened my eyes to many things including the effect of possessions.

Not long after I finished university my parents moved house, on that day I packed all my remaining stuff (I had given stuff of use to friends on long term loans) into boxes for safe keeping at the new house and took my wallet, my toothbrush, some cloths and a duvet and went to crash at my girlfriends apartment. I remember feeling vividly liberated, I must apologise for the vulgarity of the following analogy but it is the most applicable - the sensation was much like having emptied one's bowels, the way in which you feel light and mobile afterwards. I had severed the bond between my things and me and it felt good. I no longer cared about the size of my CD collection, it was no longer needed to give me pride in who or what I was.

I spent those two years going from tournament to tournament, crashing at fellow gamers houses all over the place. The best way to learn something is to do it with a lot of different people. I wanted to be good at games and so I played with lots of people, I had no home, all I really had was what I carried with me, and I have never felt so free. I never really knew where I would be more than a few days away except for the big tournaments and even for those I was blissfully unprepared. I was once due to fly to Japan but had not felt the need to book accommodation or acquire any Yen. It might have been quite an unpleasant experience if it were not for the trusting goodwill of the gaming community and the delightfully welcoming Japanese.

I made a humble and unpredictable living in that time and often relied on the kindness of others but I also grew up more in that time than any other. I came to find the travelling stressful and adopted a more docile life in a home, but I have not forgotten the life lessons of the wandering and have come to understand some of their teachings better.

Possessions do not "own" you in the strict sense of the word as that would be ridiculous, however they are somewhat like shackles weighing down upon your choices. If we become too invested in them we will begin to muddle our priorities. One cannot gain self esteem or self worth through possessions, they serve only to make life more pleasant and convenient. It is not how much you own that can make us lose sight but rather how much we care for what we own. A broken thingamy can never be as bad as a broken relationship, which is important to always remember as it may serve as a measure of ones personal investment in their things.

Why spend so much time working if all you are to do with the proceeds is spend it on stuff you don't need? Life without possessions makes you see that you didn't really need them for anything, without them you just have more time to dedicate to the things in life that actaully provide fulfillment such as friendship, achievement and self improvement. I do not advocate a life without possessions, that would be quite counterproductive, but I would recomend a clear head in remebering the purpose of the things you own; pleasure, convenience and nothing more.