Our Stuff

I was playing in this band a couple of years ago, okay I can see your eyes glazing over as I write--trust me, it gets better. I also had a girlfriend, who I had been with for probably a little over a year. At this point you might be saying to yourself . . . okay nothing compelling here. In the musical-project there was this one guy who was a vocalist, who at this point in the allegory shall remain nameless. Well, interestingly enough he was more than a chanter. He also was a polygamist, a sort-of-self-professed-shaman, and acute proponent of tantra and tantric activities. He decreed the utility of the philosophy, and decried the bottom-feeding "seed spillers".
It turned-out that although he held disdain for others that would push their opinions and beliefs upon him; he just like many of us knew that his way was atomically correct.

One particular person that he didn't mind disseminating his blissful propaganda, I mean information, to was of course my girl. In an apparent diplomatic motion--to get to the girl (my girl) who was apparently cold-shouldering his offers--he finally comes to me to try and persuade me--that in essence he would be doing me a favor. He told me that attachment is a dangerous, unnatural emotion, and that in order to have internal peace that I must detach myself from all materials and people. Immediately I know what his modus is. This guy is trying to convince me to let him . . . Of course my reaction is that of disbelief and amazement of the temerity and the gumption of this fucker.

I thought to myself, "I Like being attached to things." I thought of my family and friends, my instruments, my 'stuff', my . . . You know how it is when you get that perfect pair of shoes or the hoodie that seems ideal for the nipping winds of a Chicago fall; the feeling you have when you go to your house or when you get into your car--it is intrinsically connected to raw emotion, which we already understand to disrupt the flow of logical processes and usurp the more apathetic rationale that is contingent on reason-based analysis. This is the reaction one has when carjacked. Do they relinquish control (attachment) of their property or do they attempt to evade the would be assailant? What if in the process of escape they critically injure or in fact commit a homicidal act upon a child? This was a decision made from the standpoint of first, lacking a crystal ball, in that the person did not/could not possess the information to supply them with all the plausible outcomes and consequences of the situation. Second, the decision was multi-dimensional--made in a stitch of time that metaphysically consulted the past, present, future; relying heavily of the past bonding experiences; considering pride and safety in the present; and weighing future expectations.
When something is our own we expect it to be around. We may not even like the damn thing but . . . its ours . . . so don't touch it! If someone does steal our watch or spill grape juice on our favorite tweed blazer, or exorcises our grandmothers spirit we tend get upset. We maintain a perspective of our stuff; holding a mental image of the how it looks, feels, smells, etc...more significant how it makes us feel when we are in the presence of such personal artifacts. If by chance these items are altered by a student driver, adding texture to the side of your door in a grocery parking lot, or by your roommate grifting a large chunk of your cheesecake--many of us would not prefer happenings to our stuff because of our expectations of the mental image sometimes seared into our brains, and the emotional connections to our hearts.


Years later I began to think about what my compatriot had remarked upon, in a big-picture type analysis. I thought of the necessity of detachment from certain items, ideas, people, places, even culture and to a certain extent history. Because what is detachment but a persistent and constant aloofness; an objectivity, and indifference that are innocuous to contrite and often misleading emotional tirades and bereft of methodological and sane reasoning. No my friends, detachment does not automatically connote a necessary disconnection to and from whatever it is that we are fond of in the first place. I believe that one can (and often does) maintain a level of detachment that is frequently ambiguous and unnoticed, nevertheless relevant in/to the way we interact, and in the long run cooperate with one another.

Think for a moment of the articles and examples that I listed previously. What do they all have in common? They are all add-ons and accessories, attachments that are understandably created and maintained because of a connection or even a yearning want for a better/more comfortable existence. But again to reiterate, these items, withstanding our connection with people/spirits are not pertinent or in fact even necessary in most instances.
TBC . . .