Musing...
This question has got me thinking about Michael Landy’s “Breakdown” and the question of how much we need things. “Breakdown” was something that I found very powerful, very moving and, in the end, very scary. Why? Because the idea of demolishing your past life seems to be close to the idea of demolishing yourself. Yet the scariness of such a move is something I find giddyingly inspiring: the idea of having the guts to put all your possessions through a shredder, given the risk that that amounts to putting yourself through a shredder is one that leaves me awestruck. I’d be lovely to think that I was that brave.

I’ve been musing for a while on the notion of stripping away from a person – maybe myself, maybe someone else - all that could be stripped away, and seeing whether anything would be left, or whether you would thereby “abolish” them (and, conversely, what would be left after a biographical life had been removed from a merely biological one). It’s unlikely that simply removing anyone’s possessions would be sufficient to achieve this, but it might be an interesting first move.


Volunteers?
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Fri 9 May 2008, 12:10, 16 replies)

Aw, go on then.
But bear in mind that my only worldly possessions are my mobile phone and a pair of stained Dangermouse Y-fronts.
( Bert Monkeysex is waiting for the mods to delete him, Fri 9 May 2008, 12:14, closed)

Nope
Not up for it.
I know I don't *need* anything other than food and water, but I like the things I have.

As an "interesting aside", if you could only keep 5 posessions, and the rest would be de-molecularised, what would you keep?
( Cawl, Fri 9 May 2008, 12:18, closed)

try it, without the permanency:
Walk away from everything with 2 changes of clothes. And a spork, because sporks are useful. Travel like that, cut off from telecommunications like email and mobile. It's perfectly do-able, and it is extremely liberating. We're more than the things that we own. But yeah, I came back to my things.

Without getting into too much wanky bollix, I used to think we're defined by what we'd acquired and what we'd achieved. Now I think it's by what we do.

I like having my possessions around me, but I know I would be fine without them.

Volunteering? Sure, but I'd want financial compensation. I'm not that bloody worthy.
( crackhouseceilidhband Fuck off back to Mumsnet, Fri 9 May 2008, 12:18, closed)

Dr Ceilidhband...
Ah, the ravings of someone stoned off her bonce!
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Fri 9 May 2008, 12:21, closed)

We're definitely not defined by our possessions
but by our stories...our history, out memories. Wipe that out and you no longer exist.
( chickenlady b3ta's very own Elizabeth Taylor, Fri 9 May 2008, 12:21, closed)

@Enzyme
I have 8 Valium remaining and I'm not sharing them!
( crackhouseceilidhband Fuck off back to Mumsnet, Fri 9 May 2008, 12:23, closed)

I'll swap
You a vallium for a Picolax.
( Cawl, Fri 9 May 2008, 12:26, closed)

by removing the biographical life, as you term it
you are causing change, but whether that change demolishes a past is debatable. You're getting into the realms of artefact biography.
( crackhouseceilidhband Fuck off back to Mumsnet, Fri 9 May 2008, 12:27, closed)

@ Chickenlady
I agree, you just need to look at the QOTW board to see people defining themselves through their stories and experiences.
(Errorist, Fri 9 May 2008, 12:28, closed)

Maybe
But then I'd have to download all that pron again.
( ReReformed, Fri 9 May 2008, 12:52, closed)

stuff is cool
but I definitely get more out of their use than their ownership. I would give the lot up safe in the knowledge that I could just get more stuff later but only because I would then be able to enjoy their use. I am defined by those who love me and those whom I love. Without them, your memories and actions etc are rootless.
(bazmorningstar efil4nat3b, Fri 9 May 2008, 12:55, closed)

so, you'd save your definition?
seems to me the most important thing, as such, is one's "definition" of oneself. I think it would be awesome if I could part with the addictive need to define myself at all....sighs.....
(dadadali has hybrid vigour, Fri 9 May 2008, 13:01, closed)

@dadadali
In the context of enzymes original challenge, sure, that definition makes it acceptable but I'm quite content to be proved wrong. All the fast cars and big screen TV's in the world amount to sweet FA when you're wrong (or right).
(bazmorningstar efil4nat3b, Fri 9 May 2008, 13:55, closed)

Hmmm...
I have in mind something more radical than "self-definition" - something more along the lines of the idea that we're fundamentally tied in with the world around us. Abolish that world, and you could abolish a person. (Think of the way the Khmer Rouge tried to create a new kind of person - and that Robespierre tried to do the same thing through the Committee for Public Safety. In those cases, people died - but I don't think that that's all that important, and I don't see why they should have to have...)
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Fri 9 May 2008, 14:04, closed)

Enzyme.....


....you think to much.
( girlinthehole, Fri 9 May 2008, 19:31, closed)

Okay, your last reply there threw me a bit.
First of all- yes, we are fundamentally connected to the world. There is no way around it- man and his environment are one. Don't believe me? Get into a vacuum chamber and flip the switch to remove your environment from around you. Just don't ask me to clean it up.

Now, as to how one is defined by his possessions... that is something of a deep subject. Does a person define themselves by what they own?

I like to think not. Like so many others, I could easily part with pretty much everything I have quite cheerfully, as long as I knew it was going to good use- that is, I couldn't toss my grandmother's desk into a landfill, but could easily give it to one of my sisters.

On the other hand, the world tends to define you by what you have. If I drive around in a shiny Mercedes convertible, I'm viewed much differently than if I drive a battered VW Jetta TDI. If I wear a tee shirt and jeans I'm viewed much differently than if I wear a dress shirt and tie. Not only am I viewed differently, but I'm treated differently as well- people who apparently are a bit posh get a more deferential treatment than working class types.

Me, I like to kinda keep myself as something of an enigma in that regard- I drive the aforementioned TDI and wear jeans whenever I can, don't wear a lot of flashy jewelry (just two silver rings), and in general keep a rather blue-collar appearance- or rather, a neutral appearance, so I could fit in just as well with a bunch of people at a middle-class establishment as I could with the guys at the local dive after the factory lets out. I prefer not to let myself be defined in that way.

It's only if you enter my home that you start to see a slightly different view of me, and suspect that maybe there's a little more to me than first appears after all. The antiques and stained glass and whatnot tend to take people by surprise.

But really, as long as I knew that my stuff wasn't being trashed- if I knew that my friends and family would take care of it- I would be perfectly content to leave behind all but some clothes and walk away to start again elsewhere.

In fact, I once very nearly did that... but that's another long story.
( The Resident Loon Not a demographic. Do not measure., Fri 9 May 2008, 22:11, closed)