Possessed

Do you remember the first camera you owned? Suddenly, you have a tool with which to capture the sights and sounds around you. Life has a whole new definition - the camera becomes the focal point of your existence. You want to capture certain sights, keep a snapshot of a memory. You'll even invent reasons for using the object (Let's take a picture of mum cooking for keepsakes!).

Probably not everyone had a camera fetish though...

What about your first handphone? Do you remember? Life re-orients itself when you own a communicative device such as that. Your friends' handphone numbers get stored in it, and it becomes the centre around which appointments are arranged. Accessories such as handphone covers, little stringy attachments and downloadable ringtones accompany it.

How about that ultimate object - the CAR? Do you remember when you first owned a car? This is as opposed to driving your parents' car(s). When you truly own a car (like paying the cash for it and driving it), you have arrived. The car empowers you; you have friends you never knew you had and parking becomes a sport. Money suddenly flows like water - petrol, parking, accessories, car washes etc.

Certain postive feelings are created whenever we own a new item. It creates in us feelings of elation to touch and hold something postively useful; to wield it and show it off to our friends (sometimes on a sub-conscious level, but it is there). Comparisons are drawn between the haves and the have-nots, and there is a certain satisfaction to gain from owning an object that is, in one way or another, superior to someone else's.

But there is a dark side to ownership. When a person regards the object as important and precious (think poor misunderstood Gollum), that person's sense of worth becomes somewhat warped.

Have you ever dropped a friend's brand new camera? That friend turns unfriendly - the slightest scratch, the smallest perceived misfunction of the equipment can drive wedges into a friendship. A grudge, unforgiving stares, numerous reminders that afore-mentioned item has been damaged by you. The object takes on more importance simply because it was paid for. Simply because it is precious.

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I used be obsessed over my new handphone. My first one to be precise, for all the others following it generated less excitement and awe. It wasn't a great handphone - a Nokia 5110 I think. But it served me well and I was fascinated with it. It will be kept in as good a contdion as it possibly can be - that first time a scratch appeared on its panel, I was sore just rubbing away at it. At the same time, I also started to get acquainted with all the handphone models out there on the market - I knew what the good models were, how much they costed, even some of the other features they had that mine doesn't have (this was possible in the older days).

In other words, I became a handphone junkie. I will stare into shop windows, longing to own one handphone or the other, feeling inadequate because my 5110 just doesn't cut it (too chunky, can't program ringtones, etc). I became that kind of materialistic person where the object of affection, notably a device such as the handphone, exerts a certain control over my wants and desires. It's like Maslow's hierarchy of needs reaching it's lowest rungs.

At some point, all of us feel that attachment with an object, be it a handphone, camera, PDA, MP3 player. It extends to other expensive stuff too - Hermes handbags, Tag Heuer watches etc. It's the forces of materialism I suppose, and there's no denying that it drives us. Our wants drive our sense of self-worth, and we're driven to accumulate the cash to attain them.

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Gollum and his obsession with the one ring is perhaps the warning of where our materialism can drive us (well, think metaphorically here - I know Gollum's mind was warped by the ring et al but if you think about what JRR Tolkien might be telling us, you can draw the connections). Life is not measured by what we own. Life should be measured by the relationships we create. And the legacy of what we leave behind is not in monuments such as that house or car - they fade, rust and get buried in the sands of time. The legacy we leave behind is our children, our DNA so to speak.

Possessions are not the ultimate measure of one's worth, so stop the obsessing, please.