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midnight.pub midnight.pub/posts/936

Hey, how is everyone doing here?

What are you drinking?

bartender, what about some Irish cream for me to start?

I've been disconnected from the digital lands of Gemini, this pub, and some social platforms. But I guess I'm back after some changes in my life and daily routine. I think it's something healthy.

~~~~~~

Today while I was washing dishes and listening to a podcast, I was thinking about how important is for us to own things, I've even written about it:

Maybe it's an old topic, but since I started a minimalistic life, avoiding consumerism or at least trying to be more responsible, it's been interesting to me that we are what we own.

Being physical stuff, toys, consumer technology, land, money... Or something intangible like digital money, ideas, time, other people's time, videogames, crazy digital collectables, digital files like songs, and stuff like that.

Why are we what we possess?

Somewhere along the line I began to suspect possessions were more burdensome - mostly in terms of anti-entropy effort, but handcuffing psychological effects as well - than I was willing to see/accept in the seeming glow of acquisition/possession.

Since then, possessions have generally seemed a "one step forward, two steps back" kind of proposition, where the first step is well-infused with the bliss of ignorance, but the second and third essentially prelude to yet another entropy beating....

this is so interesting! wow.

a few days ago my partner was at my house and he told me about how almost everything he owns could possibly fit within his backpack, and all my items are strwen carelessly all over my room.

i think it would be nice to have less items. i have this box that i keep notes and little things that are important to me in, but as birthdays pass and we grow up i get more and more material gifts each year, which are super sweet and nice! but i end up with so many miscellaneous things and i start losing track of them.

i used to make up scenarios in my head, for example, where a fire would happen and i'd have enough time to save three of my items, which would they be?

This -- ownership, the connection between possessions and identity, or ownership and personhood -- is a subject that I think about quite a lot, but haven't ever really been able to say much about, or even reach personal conclusions about.

There was a time that everything I

owned fit in a cigar box, and a

Maybe I am what I possess, and I have trouble keeping track of what I am when I possess too much.

On the other hand, without

possessing anything...I left no

Why are we what we possess? Why does so much of me live in what I own? Why is it so important to me to know what belongs to me if my needs are taken care of anyway?

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