Prisoner of possessions

"We must rapidly begin the shift from a 'thing-oriented' society to a 'person-oriented' society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights, are considered more important than people; the giant triplets of racism, materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered."

Martin Luther King Jr., clergyman, activist, leader in the African-American Civil Rights movement.

Belongings, capital, holdings, house, resources, riches - in short - wealth; is a necessity in the world we live in today. Yet, many of the so-called comforts that give a cheer to life are, while being necessary and indispensable, can become a positive hindrance to the elevation of our life and to our freedom. This being so; how do we balance the need, with the needless? Reduce the complexity of life by eliminating the excessive and expendable wants of life, and the labours of life reduce themselves. Need should not become greed. Greed may be good; greed may be right for some; greed may work to accumulate wealth; but greed will not save you from poverty because the greedy are also miserly - not only unto others, but also to themselves.

Thus, they remain in eternal beggary in spite of their wealth. What use is there even if you possess all the wealth in the world, if you continue to dwell a miser.

Possessions are diminished by avarice and self-induced penury. It is a cultural disability that we worship pleasure, leisure, and affluence, not necessarily in that order.

We go on multiplying our conveniences only to multiply our cares. We increase our possessions only to the enlargement of our anxieties. In today's consumer based civilisation that Sri Lanka has become, we spin cocoons around ourselves; and become possessed by our possessions. Fences and hoarded possessions are our heritage. We transport gold to our grave without realising that those who own much have much to fear. The truth is, most people tend to measure their status in life based on their assets without realising that we are not great or small because of our material possessions. We are great or small because of what we are and how we perceive the world. Unnecessary possessions are unnecessary burdens.

Affliction

If we have them, we have to take care of them; and affliction and worry haunts us for fear of losing them. There is great freedom in simplicity of living. Those who have enough, but not too much, are the happiest.

Happiness resides not in possessions or in hoarded gold or cash.

Happiness dwells in the soul. With money, one could buy conveniences, which makes life easy, but surely not happiness. India, where I lived for more than 25 years, profoundly changed my outlook on life because you see how people can be content and very happy with little or even no possessions. Wealth consists not in having great possessions, but in having few wants. It is the preoccupation with possessions, more than anything else that prevents us from living freely and nobly.

"Many wealthy people are little more than the janitors of their possessions" is what the American architect, interior designer, writer and educator, Frank Lloyd Wright said of the wealthy. Nothing is so hard for those who abound in riches as to conceive how others can live without the trappings of riches because they are prisoners of their possessions.

If Sri Lanka is to become an equitable society, I believe the government must introduce an eighty percent tax on the possessions that people leave to their children beyond a certain limit, a limit specified to meet wants, not greed. I would put such limit at 15 million rupees in total assets per child based on the conditions today; and this amount should be re-assessed at least once every two years - to move it up or down.

At least then, accumulation of wealth through the plunder of the common wealth of this country, the wealth of the people, may be neutralised and nullified, to an extent; because, in truth, howsoever hard a person works; it is impossible to amass, in one's lifetime, the kind of wealth one sees around unless by foul and fouler means.

Excessive love of possessions could be termed a disease; which is insatiable, perpetual, universal, and directly destructive of society because most of what we take as being important is not material; whether it is music, feelings, or love. They are things we cannot really see or touch.

They are not material, but they are vitally important to us. A free life cannot acquire many possessions, because this is not easy to do without servility to mobs or monarchs.

One may walk about among the beautiful things that adorn the world; but beyond limit private wealth one should decline, or any sort of personal possessions that is the result of mortgaging one's soul, because that would take away liberty.

Anything that cannot be relinquished, when it has outlived its usefulness possesses you, and in this materialistic age a great many of us are possessed by our possessions.

If anything, boundless riches are like nuts; many a tooth is broke in cracking them, but never is the stomach filled with eating them. "I would rather excel in the knowledge of what is excellent, than in the extent of my power and possessions" said Plutarch, a Greek historian, biographer, essayist, who became a Roman citizen and wrote 'Parallel Lives and Moralia'.

Happier

We are not the sum of our possessions. Why grab possessions like thieves, or divide them like socialists when we can ignore them like wise men? Many possessions, if they do not make a man better, are at least expected to make his children happier; and this pathetic hope is behind many exertions, many a plunder. I believe it was Albert Einstein, who wrote, "The crippling of individuals I consider the worst evil of consumerism. Our entire educational system suffers from this evil. An exaggerated competitive attitude is inculcated into the student, who is trained to worship acquisitive success as a preparation for his future career." So many people walk around with a meaningless life. They seem half-asleep, even when they are busy doing things they think are important.

This is because they are chasing the wrong things. The way you get meaning into your life is to devote yourself to loving others, devote yourself to your community around you, and devote yourself to creating something that gives you purpose and meaning. Do not become a prisoner of possessions.

See you this day next week. Until then, keep thinking; keep laughing. Life is mostly about these two activities.

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