Saturday, August 14, 2010

Is the automobile an extension of the human?

Whilst at the farmer's market this morning I heard a snippet of conversation:

"I was broken into! During the fireworks. I was parked in the underground."

I was a bit alarmed when I took that at face value - breaking into a human being sounds painful! Then I realised she meant her automobile was broken into.

It sounded like this person took personal affront at having her automobile broken into. But this sounds like just a crime of opportunity to me. The robber probably had never thought about - and will never think about - the owner of the car! It was truly nothing personal, he just wanted to steal stuff.

So now this woman is traumatized about having her automobile violated. This does not sound like a healthy extension of the self to include your possessions. If you extend that to all of your possessions, you will see yourself getting old in so many ways, and bumped, and bits of you will break down and need replacing, and other bits will be hopelessly outdated and tired.

This doesn't sound healthy, but I think it's a prevalent attitude in the western world. How sad.

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