Possessed By Possessions
Thoughts On The Tangible.
Spending hours searching, taking apart, shuffling through belongings, retracing steps, attempting to locate a lost possession. An infuriating hunt. The item could be house keys, a notebook, bank statements, earphones. It could be a tool, an accessory or necessity. It could be something bought fourteen hours ago or owned for fourteen years. Worse when it's a gift or loaned from a friend – then no pillowcase, pockets, boxes or mat left unchecked. I once lost an important usb and continued to check the cupboard I swore I left it in, months after it’s disappearance. Quietly, I’m still frustrated at its loss, I don’t even remember its contents.
The same memory that failed to recall the last known whereabouts becomes something of a foggy map aided by the chance of stumbling upon whatever has been lost.
To misplace a possession is to displace part of yourself. It’s apparent that you’ll be defined by your material belongings, they speak on your behalf. Everything you own says something about the person you are, though sometimes they lie and give false impressions. What you have is what you’ll leave behind in death; who can really say where the spirit goes, but inherited belongings will keep you alive, in memory, in some small way. Not everything owned is meant to be cherished. Majority of what you have or had is designed to serve a purpose then be discarded, like a face mask. Possessions can escape redundancy when they hold weight within your life, either sentimental or practical. An item's reusability will grant it longevity, same can be said for the circumstance in which it fell into your care and the experience attached to it. There’s really no reason to hold onto a concert ticket outside of nostalgia. In a sense, the memory triggered by possessions turns them into an unreadable journal. A record of past experiences, be it yours or someone else’s.
There’s an entire market for memorabilia. Buyers looking for keepsakes that signify the importance of whatever circumstance made them culturally valuable. In a video, Lenny Kravitz describes the magic of a pair of red James Brown boots and how he believes if worn anyone could dance like him. The magnetism of James Brown cannot literally be captured in boots like a genie in a bottle, but if given the chance to wear them, don’t tell me you wouldn’t attempt to bust a move. Even if you had two left feet, merely walking around in them would make you feel a little like the man himself. The same can be said for donning the belongings of anyone. It doesn’t have to be the exact same one, you can recreate the style of an individual you admire or close to by buying the same model or replica. It’s impossible to become someone else. But it is possible to feel like them. You can trick yourself into believing your Cristiano Ronaldo by carrying a seven on your back. You can trick others into believing you are who you pretend to be if you’re an actor in a biopic.
Possessions are your essences turned material. Those who know me best will identify me by the aesthetic of the property I keep. They can see something I’ve never owned and be reminded of me. They can get it for me present, knowing it will fit into the ecosystem of my taste and interests. Though aesthetic taste can change like the seasons. You will physically and mentally grow out of things – like growing apart from people – they’ll no longer be quintessential to you. There’s always the possibility of rediscovery, surrounding yourself with objects from a period of one's life can bring you closer to the person you once were. A large part of style trends coming in and out of fashion is people collectively rediscovering cultural signifiers and artifacts from a particular era and attempting to replicate them, chasing after the spirit of those times. Amongst the great deal of personal effects I’ve discarded over the years a few of them have come back to haunt me. If I only saw in them what I see now, I could’ve avoided this lingering regret.
