I had an adorable pair of socks, they had a little cartoon apple on them and below the smiling apple face, they said  ‘bite me’. When I saw those socks in the store, they made me chuckle aloud; I bought them imagining all the platies and yoga classes I would attend, where everyone could see my socks and laugh along with me, basking in my cleverness and my rye sense of humor.  Now, the socks were starting to become threadbare, in the months since the pandemic had begun, no one but Eric and I had seen those socks, there was no one else to laugh at them, to affirm me in relation to them.

I began to consider the socks more closely, I asked myself: “Do these socks prove who I am?” I bought them because I thought they expressed my sense of humor, they affirmed this important aspect of my personality. I bought them because, according to me, at that time, in that fresh-new-sock-state, I believed they reflected something about myself.  Now though, they just look like sad, worn out socks. Now, unseen by anyone else, they don’t even have the opportunity to affirm me at all. So can these socks, that wear out, that depend on circumstances in which they are seen, really prove anything about me? Do they prove my value?

I thought more about what it is those socks are able to prove and suddenly I realized: These socks, sitting in my laundry pile, prove  that, at least at the moment I bought them, I believed they proved something about me. Having these socks today prove that once upon a time, when I pulled my credit card out in the store, I believed these socks could represent me, affirm me, prove my humor and cleverness.  These socks prove nothing but the fact that I held a delusion about them, at least long enough, to buy them, to claim them, to make them ‘mine’.

Its true, that in the store, all those years ago, as I gazed at the socks, imagining our future together, I claimed them as mine, as representatives of my humor. They were my statement to this world — a cute, clever, ‘bite me’. Now though, as I see them all ratty and tattered, I had to ask myself: “Does claiming an object actually change the reality of the object I claim?” I mean, if it did, would these cute, once beloved socks be so beaten-up, would they be on lock-down in my house along with me, rather than out there –virus be damned– broadcasting my awesomeness to the world? No, claiming an object doesn’t seem to change the object at all, the only thing claiming an object seems to change is me.

Claiming an object changes my expectations of how an object will act; my socks will act in my service, bring me satisfaction, go out into the world, lookin good, and represent me. Claiming an object changes my behavior. I need to figure out how to clean the socks, stitch the holes; I use rupa thread and rupa detergent to manipulate rupa socks, trying to bring them to, and help them sustain, a state that I like, a state I imagine will bring me satisfaction and will affirm my sense of who I am to the world.  But, independent of my expectations, independent of my efforts, I have a worn-out pair of tattered socks, cowering in my laundry basket, avoiding the world. I have socks that prove what they are –4e objects subject to rips and tears and degradation — not who I am. I have socks that prove my beliefs — the ignorance with which I bought them hoping they would somehow be more.