'poverty of being'.

 Let possessions exist.



"Everything in the world belongs to God. But being a philosopher (a wise person) is to be a friend of God. But friends don't share things with each other. So, a philosopher has everything."


- Diogenes


To be wise is to associate with all things, and to associate with God who is all things.


As much as I associate with all things, that much is mine and my world. Therefore, the phrase 'all things are mine' does not refer to extreme possession, but to the necessity or impossibility of possessing. This is because money and law cannot command friendship with all things (gods).


If Diogenes' words 'owning all things' are about a kind of 'relationship', the core of ownership in modern history lies in 'disposition of relations'.


To own something means to have the right to dispose of it freely. If I cannot dispose of it, my possessions represent at best the limits of my enjoyment.​


If we look at things from the point of view of modern private ownership, which means we can dispose of anything we have at any time, we will become rich and yet suffer another kind of poverty.


​


One of the reasons Marx was against private property was that it made us so insensitive and one-sided. Only one sense of 'have' remains, and 'seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, feeling, thinking, contemplating, perceiving, wishing, working, and loving', that is, physical and mental senses, can all be alienated. If that happens, our very nature, our very existence, will suffer from extreme poverty. This is because we make ourselves through communion with things, that is, through the activities of sensing and transforming things.


​


"Possessing or Existence?"


Inspired by Marx, Erich Fromm's question to us is important in that it points to a poverty that cannot be solved by owning more, or even worse in the process of owning more.


That is our 'poverty of being'.


Cars that have been sitting in the drawer for a long time are my possessions, but they don't exist to me.


Just as the clothes that my eyes and touch have stopped in the closet belong to me and do not exist,


Just as the books that were redeemed by me on the bookshelf are mine, but do not exist to me,


Just as music does not exist for the ears who cannot hear music, when I can be free from any poverty even if my wealth does not increase, when I can communicate and share my physical and mental senses, my possessions become existence.

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