Buttoning Up This Life

Benjamin Button was a little long in the tooth to my way of thinking. I was expecting a larger impact on the bane of mortality from the guys responsible for Se7en and Fight Club. All in all I found it a middling exercise and left the theatre in mild disappointment.

However, my brother Joe (we call him Beacher) and I have been ruminating quite a bit about this movie ever since. The simplicity of Button’s lifestyle and the fleeting nature of it has been our focus. Perhaps I was too quick to judge initially.

I’m not going to mess about here. This movie expanded my understanding of material things. You see we may purchase things, but we never own them. They are simply borrowed, leased. Nothing, not even our mortal coils, are permanent in our ephemeral lives.

I have come to think of everything in much the same way I do fashionable clothes. Buy what makes you look and feel good but don’t expect that to last and don’t mortgage your future for them. Homes, cars, furniture, they are all disposable goods.

I’ve owned some really great stuff in most all categories and I changed those very same possessions regularly with virtually no appreciation of past ownership for in the end it was just “stuff”.

Perhaps I’m not nostalgic. I don’t keep pictures or mental images to wax over later with an enveloping sigh. I appreciate what I have and use today and I of course cling to future hope but past possessions have no effect on me.

With this in mind I look to simplify that future hope and expectation, to temper it with the knowledge that functionality will be of greater import then owning the fancy sports car or the home with a 10 foot TV screen. Those things were nice, but not in relationship to their cost. No one gets 5 times the enjoyment out of a $140,000 car than somebody with a $28,000 car. Hell I barely drive 10,000 kms per year.

I have spent a large part of my life endeavouring to live according what my station in life dictates. Consuming and purchasing based on a T4 and Madison Avenue, if you will. My assumption was living within my means was the litmus test.

Now they say money can’t buy happiness but it certainly can buy things to aid in the happiness quotient. I thought I had the right benchmark by coupling that and living within my means. However, these random accoutrements were not getting me as happy as the cost inferred.

I watched Pitt’s character ride the same motorcycle and help with the same chores at the old age home regardless of his T4 station and he looked happy to me. For those of us having a hard time defining happiness, perhaps therein lies the lesson. Happiness may be the absence of anxiety. Owning “things” does not impart that. In fact horsepower and square footage can have quite the opposite effect.

We do not own material possessions, material possessions own us.

These nice “things” in life come with a cost beyond the price tag. They come with concern and they come with guilt, concern over the upkeep and guilt over the proper utilization. Did I park too close to that other car and will they carelessly nick mine? Is it not absurd to be watching a TV made for a small theatre when you are alone 95% of the time?

These things may be self evident to you and if they are I doff my cap to you. I have been so busy chasing something that even when I caught it I was too muddled and obtuse to learn that I missed an opportunity for a simpler and more rewarding life. Attaining all the material niceties in this life is no different than a fine meal...very satisfying in the moment but temporary sustenance only in the long term.

My new mission statement is to live a Benjamin Button existence. Appreciate the here and now and look at possessions as interesting trinkets and baubles only. If their cost is negligible then all is fine, however if there is to be a sacrifice for such distractions, then I believe I would be selling myself for the acquisition. Not to be Buddhist but making the desire reality is not worth the price.

I’m no longer interested in briefly attaining a rented item in exchange for my happiness.

See ya next week top of the food chain!

-Life is complicated and far from perfect, but it's still great.