Detachment

I used to be confused by the notion of "Detachment."  I had heard this was the goal of meditative practices - to detach from the "self" and even from the world.  So many philosophers and theologians exhort us to "detach" from the physical in order to get in touch with the spiritual, the truth that exists behind the facade of daily life.

I liked the mystical quality of this - kinda like the beginning of the Matrix movie, when Neo realizes that what he thought was real was really virtual - his apartment, his job, his city, even his gravity and time were really a digital simulation of sorts.  Interestingly, there are some far-out-there theories in physics that suggest that time and space and matter do not really exist like we see them either, and that perhaps everything is a kind of projection, a hologram of some underlying code that simply exists.

OK.  Interesting stuff in a kind of trippy way.  But what are we supposed to do with this?

Obviously, we can only experience the world now in one way, a physical place with time moving in one direction, and gravity keeping us on this spinning orb so we do not float off into space.  In a practical way it does not really matter to me if time and gravity are real or virtual, they seem to be facts of my day to day life.

And more than that, are we really meant to detach from everything?  We are told to love each other, to cherish the earth, to care for the sick and needy, to treat each other with respect and to value justice and fairness.  How can you value all these things, how can you love every person, or even yourself, if you achieve some perfect form of "detachment?"  Isn't love a kind of attachment, the best kind of attachment?  Should we try to stop loving others, or even ourselves? This seems crazy and counter intuitive.

I do not think that to goal of "detachment" is is kind of cutting off or separation from yourself or the world.  I do not want to live the rest of my life as a hermit/aesthete living alone in blissful meditation in a dark cave somewhere.

I think "detachment" is about realizing the that physical world of things is not as all important as it first seems to us.   One good first step towards this is understanding that we never really can "own" or "possess" anything, except perhaps the choices that we make in this life (which may be the purpose of free will, but that is another discussion).  We may enjoy some of the marvels of this world, but trying to hold on to them, to keep them all for ourselves will ultimately end in vain failure.

Think of how much human history, the history of nations, or even your own personal history is based on the idea that you can find, accumulate, and keep things you value.  We "get" grades, so we can "get" a job, so we can "get" money, that allows us to "buy and own" things.  We then try to "keep" these things, and work hard to keep others from "taking" them from us.  So much of our time and worry is about accumulation and ownership of land, of resources, of gold, of oil, of money.  Much of our recorded history is the bloody story of this very human obsession, and it makes sense, as in antiquity (and in some of the poorest parts of the world even today, sadly) having access to these things often was the difference between survival and death.  A grand darwinian competition.  Of course,  I want you to have have access to enough money and resources that you can live mainly comfortable lives, and support your families, and enjoy many of the pleasures of this life.  But I'm sure you have seen some people who seem to obsessively sacrifice so much of their lives and their morality to accumulating more and more and more stuff.  I know several people, people who were once my close friends, who now seem to live to make more and more money, though they have more than they will ever spend.  I also know people who become so fearful of "losing" their money, that they have become paranoid greedy misers, forever anticipating that around every corner there lurks an enemy that is coming to take their stuff away from them.  These people seem to be the most unhappy of people, so why do they act and feel so self-centered and miserable?

I think in this, as in so many things, we are victims of our evolutionary past.

For so much of human history, it was rare that a person or a family could amass enough food or resources to guard against future calamity, and that those of us who did a better job preparing for the future tended to survive the bad times (hmmm, anyone thinking about coronavirus?).

So now, there is a deep drive within us, a feeling that no matter what we have, that we need more.  What we have now is not enough.  Our food, our toilet paper, our retirement account, all of these could be depleted or lost and we could be homeless and on the street.  And I suppose this is always possible.

And on a deeper psychological level underneath everything is our knowledge that death is coming for us.  The ultimate calamity.  Wow, that sounds bleak.  But think about it, it is true.  You know you will one day die.  There is no avoiding it.  You can try to forget it, but still for many it drives a great deal of our unconscious behavior.  For too many people, this unconscious fear/knowledge, the certainty of their future death, becomes the one thing they desperately imagine they can prevent, if only they stockpile enough stuff.  This is nothing new - think Tutankhamon, or Viking funerals.  But nowadays, we use home shopping network or 401Ks for the same purpose, to imagine that we can hold off death by clinging to things, like a life preserver in a cold dark ocean.

But think about this - what does it mean to "have" things?   Sure you paid money to someone for your car, let's say, and you have a piece of paper that says it is yours, and you can park it at your place.  You can use it (mostly how you want).  But someone else can take it, it can stop working, it can fall apart, and one day someone else may use "own" it.  Using it is part of your life now, but it will not be forever.  Your clothes, your house, even your haircut are all the same in this regard.  We may grow really fond of these things in our lives, but we rarely use them forever, and they never really become an integral part of us, because they can't.  Saying I own my car is like saying I own my job.  I am accustomed and really like my job, but I can not know that it will be in my life forever, it is more something I do now, not something permanent.

Money too, is not own-able in a permanent way really.  In fact, money is not really anything but a socially agreed upon notion to allow us to barter more efficiently (and also to encourage our natural tendencies for hoarding, for better and worse).  Money is not a really thing, but a symbol of barter, a potential action.  So it is good to have some money as it opens up all kinds of potential actions and even a little security in an uncertain life, but THAT IS ALL IT IS.  It is not an end in itself.  When I was a kid I had a friend who collected old rare beer cans, and I thought it was kinda cool.  But over time I realized that he amassed more and more beer cans, could only talk about beer cans, only think about beer cans.  What can one person really do with 3000 beer cans?  After a few minutes of looking at them, you are done.  And he didn't even drink beer....  Over time our obsessions with "owning" things (or accumulating money) begins to be feel like an end itself, instead of a means to an end, and we are more "owned" by these obsessions than we can own them.

Likewise, we do not own time (though we like to count it endlessly as if we could own it), happiness, our own health, even other's perceptions of us.  Our behaviors may influence these things, but we do not possess them.

And of course we can not own others.  You may love someone dearly, but they are not yours.  If you are lucky they will choose to spend time with you, but there is no controlling other people.  You will see how hard it is one day to control even the littlest of children, I think.

Nor do we own our dreams or our feelings or our ideas either.  We experience them, but we can not hold them in our hands without them slipping through our fingers.

How strange to think that so much of who you are is not in your control or possession.  Except, I think, what you choose to do.  But even our actions, once they are done, are not able to be held-on to, as the present so quickly becomes the past, and moves on.

I think a better way to approach our lives is like we would approach an invitation to a great feast or celebration, full of all kinds of people, foods, music and conversation.  We can focus on the rude guest or the fact that the cheesecake is running out, and have a miserable time.  We can park ourselves in front of the communal bowl of shrimp and try to eat them all before anyone else can get them (sorry Mormor).  We can even constantly look at our watches, dreading or hoping the meal will be over soon.  But we will be happier if we see the truth of the situation:  this great buffet will not last forever - we are here and we have free will to choose what to eat, who to talk to, and even to some extent whether we treasure our time here or bemoan it.  We have been given an opportunity to sample many things, and learn from our experiences, and we have some time to share this feast with others if we choose.  Let's just enjoy looking at the ice sculpture on the dessert table - trying to take it home for ourselves will leave us with a sad puddle of water.