These days I’m in the process of dusting books and cleaning shelves — it’s spring-cleaning time in the library. Along with it arrives this thought: What if I were to lose all three thousand books in a fire, and what if that same fire destroyed our collection of irreplaceable family photographs and other treasured heirlooms and odds and ends? At one time, the thought that followed would have surprised me. […]
What we think we’ve lost, we never had at all. What we think we have, we never really can or will. What we think is what we think we think, until . . . . [ 1763 ]
To live a simple life, I need not give up my possessions. I need only give up the idea that there is a me who possesses them, or who is, or who can be, possessed by them. Then they are what they are and nothing more; they are no longer possessions; they can be discarded or kept accordingly, for their utility, their inspired craftsmanship, their energy, their beauty, their form, […]
William Michaelian 