On the Futility of Ownership

(Edited from a Tattered Thread blog entry originally made on April 16, 2004)

As I sit here watching Fantasia for only the 3rd time with my 5-year-old I'm reminded of the futility of actually attempting to own anything. Those who know me with more intimacy than that transmitted by mere blog entries are no doubt sitting agog in their chairs at those words.

The 5-year-old in question did NOT want to watch Fantasia; instead she was dead set on watching Lion King 1 ½ which due to some unknown circumstance had made itself unavailable at the moment. Anyone who has a child this age knows that quickly the entire purpose of this child's existence became the capture and interrogation of any individual who knew the whereabouts of her lost movie. Clearly, the child has gone from possessing the possessions to being possessed BY the possessions. My daughter's resultant meltdown caused two distinct threads to unravel themselves in my mind.

First, what exactly is the purpose of the cinematic and other visual art forms? It seems clear that the primary purpose for consumption of the arts is the simple visceral reaction invoked by the artwork being consumed. In short, the arts make us feel good.

Secondarily, the work acts to expand the general realm of experience for the viewer. Since humans are the sum of all that they see and hear in a lifetime, art makes us better and broader people no matter what the format. If we take these two statements as axiomatic, then it follows that the greatest possible benefit is derived from any artwork at first encounter while subsequent repetitions provide diminishing returns on time and energy since they are naught but further study on an already familiar concept.

So now one might ask: what exactly is the purpose of accumulating a library of anything when the value of every item in that library diminishes with each use? It would seem the only items worth owning are those that you wish to study and refer back to over a long period of time. Surely my 5-year-old can have no plans to study The Lion King in depth over the next 15 years and refer back to it in her doctorate thesis? Doubtful, so then why own any but the keenest and most worthwhile of items? Why spend one's hard-earned monetary resources on items which depreciate in value and take up space causing you to need special furniture or a bigger house? Are we so materialistic as a people that the act of owning the possession is actually more important than its real value?

This is a tough pill to swallow for me since I tend to approach my library like a collector rather than a reader. On one hand, my tendency to hoard makes me want the entirety of world literature at my fingertips. Rationally, I realize the sad truth: despite the moniker of "classic" many of the novels in my collection are, in fact, obscure and valueless crap. At least I feel I'm a step ahead of the people running garage sales piled with Danielle Steele paperbacks and the complete series of Rocky movies on Betamax.

Post Script:
The entry above was written over four and a half years ago and since then a lot has changed. I've disposed of an unprofitable collectables business and reduced my material footprint on the world (not counting household necessities) to the referenced collection of classic literature (still numbering about 400 volumes), a small collection of other books and the remnants of my foreign coin and currency collection. As I left my abode the other day I realized, quite abruptly, that if all of these items were to vanish, I would really not be all that upset. I maintain the library merely as a symbol of my own bookish nature and the coins and currency are simply too difficult to dispose of in anything but the most profitless manner. This is significant progress considering that in 2004 I had 400-500 square feet of my house devoted to objects which served no purpose whatsoever. It's still a long way to "own no more than you can carry on your back" but I think a few more garage sales should do the trick. Until that time, I think it's time to enjoy a bit of classic literature.