In all my contemplations about my ‘shield of special’ and my little bubble world — fabrications of my mind that let me imagine an Alana who is safe and comfortable and exempt from the suffering of the world — it was hard to ignore the obvious: My bubble world is full of stuff.  I pin my ideas of what is ‘safe’ in my environment, on my belongings like houses and money and a husband that will shield my from unwanted fates. My uniqueness is built on a body that is fit, a diet that is’moral’, on cars and clothes that make me (in my mind alone) ‘on top and in control’ of this world. There are configurations of rupa that are chill, SF like places, that are so me, and then there are configurations that are mellow-harshing  loud and mean, like NY, that are so not me. So it seemed like a perfectly good time to again revisit the world of rupa and do some thinking about my self and my belongings.

My head already knows damn well that the idea of ‘mine’ lives in my head alone, that there is no necessary relationship between the reality of an object (its form/rupa), its rules and its ‘mineness’, the task at hand was to gather more evidence to convince my heart.   Below is just a little exercise I did  considering my objects and what I think makes something’mine’. It has no conclusion, it was, and still is, an ongoing contemplation, but this was an evidence gathering effort that I have re-written here right from my notebook:

Proximity: The city of SF  house is still something I considered ‘mine’ even though I had moved. Clearly proximity is not the sole criteria for mineness

Legal Ownership:  My NY apartment was something I considered mine as soon as or bid was accepted, even though I did not technically own it. Now, contract signed, and all moved in, I do not consider it mine because I hate it so much, though legally I am the owner of record. Clearly legal ownership is not the sole criteria for mineness

What comes from my/that of which I am the cause:  I consider my dad mine, even though we was born long before me, so I could not have been his cause. In fact, he was my dad for fewer years of his life than he wasn’t my dad (i.e. years prior to my birth) and yet, he was, from my perspective, always mine.  Even now, after my dad has died and left me, a part of me still views him as mine.

What I desire, or what was once mine:   An old family friend and I once considered ourselves ‘sisters’ we were so close. Now that we are grown-up and haven’t seen each other in many years, I don’t consider her my sister any more. She however still calls me and treats me like we are ‘sisters close’ on occasion. She was once mine, but because I have changed, my life has changed and what I want has changed she is no longer mine anymore. My belief in her belonging to me is totally independent of her belief about me belonging to her.

I still consider my old office mine, even though I haven’t been there in nearly a year, even though before I got to my orgaziation someone else had sat there and now that I have left someone new likely sits there.

Exclusively Mine:  I consider my home and my car mine, even though I share it with Eric. I consider items I bought on re-sale as mine, even though they had a previous owner. And yet, when I go on and sell those items at the resale shop I stop considering them mine.

Still in my Possession: I still imagine being ‘Porsche Alana’, the feeling that driving that car brought me is still so visceral, even though I sold it months ago. Even though, in the end that car disappointed me, made me feel foolish, I still cling to the idea of myself driving it, owning it, during the good times. This all leads me to ask a question: How do these objects like my dad, the Porsche, SF still shape me when they are no longer in my possession. When their physical absence means I can’t actually shape them anymore?

How can I be my dad’s daughter when he is gone? How can I still be a fundraising professional when I am out of a job? How can I still be an SFer when I have moved away, sold my home, cut ties with the community? How do I still consider myself a yogi when I haven’t done yoga in years? Am I ‘athletic’ even when I am out of shape?

How can it be when there are also things that I don’t do/don’t ‘own’ anymore and I absolutely don’t consider those me/mine? For example, I don’t consider my ex still my boyfriend, I don’t consider my identity to be that of his girlfriend.

Not Under My Control: I have money in an investment account that I am legally unable to control, but I still consider the money mine, I imagine I can use it at sometime in the future, so simply controlling something is not a sole criteria for mine.

My Body : Then there is the whole crazy issue of my body.I think it is mine even though I watch it continually change. Even though it changes in ways I don’t like. Even though it controls me sometimes, it makes me get up in the night to pee, it causes me pain and it forces me to eat. Even though it is a collection of parts and its not like I consider any given part me, I am not an ear or a nose, but they are still mine. And yet when a part leaves me, my baby teeth, my gallbladder, my dead skin, I don’t care, those are not me or mine.

If I understand that mine is only something in my head, maybe I need to look at all the times I have tricked myself before.

Present Day Note: The line above ended my contemplation back in 2017. I do however want to add a present day note to offer a bit further insight. I spent months and months in 2019 and 2020 strictly pressing on the topic of self and self belonging, and I kept wondered what makes something MINE (and therefore something I cling to) when it is clear that this idea lives no where in the 4 elements of the object. I wondered how exactly the definition of mine could keep shifting and changing, just like what we see in the contemplation above: Every time I thought I figured it out, it seemed like the criteria changed; its mine because I legally own it, only that Manhattan loft felt like ‘not mine’ long before I actually sold it. It is mine because I pay for it, but what about the outfits that feel like mine in the dressing room before I hit-up the cash register? It is mine because I have had it,  because it is my birthright, but how do I reconcile that with a body that keeps getting older and fatter and sick, is it really expressing my will, acting like my ‘right’? I realize now the problem…delusion is a slippery fuck, in truth, mine=desire+some arbitrary rationalization I use to justify/claim mineness in my mind. Its just a rationalization that changes to suit my needs, all it needs to be is ‘defensible’ to my delusional brain and its good enough to go on.

Interestingly I realized this is how a slaveholder could call a slave ‘mine’ (their memories made it defensible where as in this day and age my own memories think its insane to own another human). How missionaries could use their treatment of the non-christian natives. How  wars over disputed territory start. Some seriously ugly ass shit in this world is born from this here process of mine-ification.  Its not just mine-driven ugliness that is borne out in the world, I have plenty of examples of it filling my personal life — what about how nasty I was to the girl I thought was trying to steal my boyfriend, what about how snarky I can get at staff meetings when I think a co-worker’s ideas will harm my organization, what about all the drivers I flick off because they are pushing into my lane? And what happens when it is something even dearer to me at risk — how will I react if someone tries to steal my life? My body? What karmic seeds will I sow then?