“I shouldn’t buy more books/records until I have read/listened to the ones I already own.” I’ve heard people say that and have even said it to myself sometimes. But …
It’s probable that I will never read every book in this house, or listen to every record again, or watch every movie again. But if I want to, I have them here. No one can stop streaming them or rewrite sections or otherwise make them unavailable to me.
Somehow possessions are becoming a bad thing. I suppose they would get in the way should I want to pack up and move somewhere else, but they comprise an archive of what has touched my heart over a lifetime. See this book? Hear this album? this poem? this song? this film? This moved me. This changed my mind. This gave me a better understanding of my fellow humans. This made me laugh. This was the song at the wedding; this we played at the funeral.
Mementoes of a life are physical expressions of a time worth remembering. I have a shelf full of books that I never actually read but I listened to the audiobooks, and I wanted to make sure I would always have the words at hand should I want to re-read them.
If I’ve learned no other lesson from the digital age, it’s that nothing digital is permanent. Passages are altered, special effects are adjusted, scenes are deleted, entire works are deleted, and what you first experienced can’t be re-experienced in quite the same way. It may be something as minor as watching the opening moments of Star Wars without being reminded that now it’s called Episode IV: A New Hope, or as momentous as reading a book that someone has deemed too incendiary to be allowed for mere mortals. That’s the difference possessions can make.
There’s also the political ideology that condemns property as somehow selfish. “Why should anyone own three mansions?” eventually becomes “Why should anyone own all this stuff?” Why should someone decide what’s appropriate for someone else? I love Ray Bradbury’s story of being shamed into throwing away his Buck Rogers comic strips. After a time he realized he felt lost without Buck — he was part of who Ray was becoming — so he said, “To hell with my friends, I’m going to collect Buck Rogers,” and saved his own life.
Our possessions define us and help people — and ourselves — see who we are, or who were were; that’s why we are fascinated by museums. And so I keep buying books and albums and DVDs.
