The world economy would collapse if a significant number of people were to realize and then act on the realization that it is possible to enjoy many if not most of the things that they enjoy without first having to own them.

 Mokokoma Mokhonoana

It’s been a while since the last post on this site, mainly because I have been fighting to get the Spanish authorities to issue a license which will allow me to ride a motorcycle. With the help of my local Town Hall and Deputy Mayor (a fellow biker) it now seems that I’m nearly there and I should be able to collect my bike in a week or so.

In some ways, I can’t wait – it has been over five years since I last rode a motorcycle and I am looking forward to it so much that I could burst. On the other hand, I’m also nervous for the same reason – five years is plenty of time to forget how to ride safely and motorcycling is one of those skills that’s best kept current. Fortunately, most of the roads round where I live are pretty quiet, so I will have a chance to build up my skills again without too much traffic.

Anyway, during the last few weeks of owning a bike but being able to ride it, I did begin to ruminate about things like ownership and possession and how they are not only importantly different, they may also get to the very heart of this whole minimalism thing.

I own a motorcycle. But, what does that really mean? It’s not here in my house, I can’t touch it or see it and if I even want to sit on it, I will have to drive for almost an hour. Really, the notion of ‘ownership’ is simply a convention by which most members of a society recognize that a certain person or group has a right to control a thing or place, even if they don’t physically possess it.

When you stop to think about it, that’s actually an odd idea. At the most basic level, we can really only possess the things that we directly control. But the notion of ownership means that it’s fine to have possessions that we virtually never see or, for example, to own property we only visit twice a year.

I met this guy while trekking in the rain forest in Borneo. He took a very simple view of the whole ownership/possession thing and relieved me of part of my lunch when I temporarily stepped away from it. I may have owned those crisps, but he ate them!

Accepting without question the notion of ownership is essential to maintaining the consumer society. You can own as many things as possible and it is good to replace things not because they are worn-out or broken but because you want to replace them with something even more shiny.

Perhaps we need to return to thinking not about ownership but about possession? Having in our control only those things we need to live our lives in the way that we choose. That’s why I like the quote with which I opened this post – it’s by South African writer and philosopher Mokokoma Mokhonoana from his book The Use and Misuse of Children and I think it neatly encapsulates a lot of what I believe.

In the modern world, we have to believe that ownership equates to happiness and that the more things we own, the happier we’ll be. Endemic dissatisfaction, unhappiness and depression suggest that this is a fallacy. Perhaps it’s time to think about what we really need rather than what we are told we should need and to spend time instead enjoying the things that don’t require ownership like  the sun on a snow-covered mountain or the smile on the face of a happy dog.