When I think of owning something I don’t think of tangible things. I think more along the lines of morals, memories, and values. I guess you can say I’m a bit like Jean-Paul Sartre who agrees that ownership extends beyond objects. Although you may be able to own objects, it has to be taken into account that those objects can be taken away from you. Your values, morals, and memories cannot be taken away from you figuratively speaking. These aspects are a part of who you are and your personality. Because morals, values, and memories are imbedded inside an individual, that person has complete ownership of themselves and not just objects.
Morals demonstrate ownership because it reflects what you strongly believe in and the lifestyle you choose to live. I was raised a Christian child. I attend church every week and sometimes twice in one week. When I am around my family and church members I know exactly how to act because of the morals I gained in church. It was instilled in me from birth; I mean literally from birth. I went to church for the first time the Sunday after I was born and I was born on a Friday. Now my mother always says that when a person who is raised in the church strays away and sin, they will always find their way back. I know exactly what she means by that. She means that since those morals are instilled in that person, they will return to them because they own them. Those are apart of whom that person is. They just can’t throw it away or get it stolen. This relates very similarly to values as well.
Values are more like characteristics that you really care about. For example, I value friendship. That’s mine; I made that decision to make that my value so I own it. Other people may also value friendship but I’m not those people. It’s all about individuality. It is very common for people to value love. We even have a holiday to celebrate it. Christian saint, Valentinus, valued love very much for if it wasn’t for him we would not have Valentine’s Day. While imprisoned he wrote love letters to his jailers daughter, Asterius, signing it “from your valentine”. He valued love so much that not even prison could take it away from him. He owned it and was proud. He even became a historical person for sticking to his values. Learning about Valentinus was just a memory that I had in the back of my mind from middle school. Memories are extremely important too.
Memories are strictly owned by an individual. Without memories a person could not grow because it means he has not lived. Facts show that memories began to form and can be remembered after several years as early as 14 to 18 months. All of those memories are yours to keep. No one can take them from you. Now you may have noticed in my introduction that I said “figuratively speaking”. I said this because when it comes to memories they can be lost due to an illness or tragic accident. You may fall and bump your head, wake up, and not even know who you are or you may develop Alzheimer Disease. What I am speaking about is just a typical day of a regular person with all their memories in tact.
Morals, values, and memories are all crucial to individuals. They make up who that person is and best of all, that person gets to own those traits. Ownership is way more than just objects. You may own a house, car, money, or even a piece of land but all those things can be taken from you in the blink of an eye. What you always keep are your values, memories, and morals. Who can ask for more out of life? You already own so much.
Briana, I like your voice in this blog: it's confident and familiar, which makes this engaging. Your approach seems solid--values, morals, memories are all appropriate and useful ways to talk about ownership. But a few suggestions:
ReplyDelete1. In your description of morals and straying from sin, it almost sounded like it's not that you owned the morals--but that the morals owned you (you'd always come back, right?), which might be really interesting to consider.
2. In general, keep pushing yourself to answer "so what?" With each example, tell us why it matters, or what the larger implications are for individuals and for humanity. We own memories? So what? What does that mean? And so on...Does that make sense?