[An essay written by Loy.]
Few words are so meaningless but also the cause of so much grief as the word “Mine.”
“Mine” is misused, overused, and causes frustration and stress more than any other word. In fact, it’s used by humans in an entirely schizophrenic way.
As a rabbit, I find it fascinating how extremely important some words are to humans—little sounds and scribbles on a page carry immense importance to them. “My” is one of those words. When I use “my,” it is almost always to mean “this thing in relation to me,” while humans use it to mean “this thing I possess.”
So I called it the “Mine Game,” and set out to understand this game’s appeal with a thorough investigation of the word “Mine.” This is some of what I discovered…
The Mine Game
Chloe wrote about the Mine Game a month ago. If you missed it, the Mine Game is simple. There are only two rules:
- For any given thing, one person is allowed to call it Mine.
- The person who can call the most things Mine wins.
At first it seemed like a wonderful game to me! It’s so easy to play—anybody and everyone can.
So I started playing. I counted up what I called Mine: my body, my memories, my thoughts. I was able to come up with almost ten things that were part of who I am.
I then thought I would be clever because I knew that humans think of bodies as divide into parts, which is something I’m still getting used to. Each toe is a separate thing to them, each leg, eye, tooth.
The way I’ve been able to connect my experience to this concept is by the function and purpose each part serves me—so my hearing is “my ears” and my mobility is “my legs.” But I played along, so then I had my ears, my tail, my legs, my paws, my eyes, etc. I was starting to have a pretty long list…I could now call almost three dozen things Mine. I thought I was doing pretty good! Until I compared notes with some humans who had hundreds and often thousands of Mines.
And then I realized…the human idea of ownership is actually pretty schizophrenic.
Apparently, people also use the word Mine in an entirely strange way.
Humans don’t just say “my glasses” as a linguistic shortcut to indicate that they use the glasses. They actually think that they possess the glasses as “Mine” and their shoes “Mine” and their pants and skirts and shirts. This makes sense in a cyborg sort of way. However, they also consider their cars and computers and silverware “Mine.” This was extremely unusual.
It’s as though by calling things Mine they try to become larger than they are. By incorporating things into their sense of being, humans extend themselves beyond the scope of their bodies.
This seems like a good idea. You can become bigger and have more influence and feel better by appropriating objects into who you are.
But then you have to deal with every loss of an object as a loss of self.
Every time you drop a bowl on the ground, a piece of you shatters.
Every time your cell phone runs out of batteries, a part of your life must be put on hold while it charges.
Every time someone drains your bank account it’s an invasion and a theft of your identity and a tragedy!
And you forget to define yourself by your actions and your thoughts and your relationships to other people. These real parts of who you are atrophy because you’re so caught up maintaining all the stuff that you’ve appropriated into your personal identity.
You show other people your new computer instead of your new ideas.
You clean your house and wash your car instead of visit a friend.
You spend a month of your life packing and preparing to waste an entire weekend moving your stuff from apartment A to apartment B and then the next two months you spend unpacking it all, and making it “home.”
You work longer hours at a job you hate so you can wear shoes that make you feel like a more desirable person.
THIS IS STUPID!
WHY DO YOU PLAY THIS GAME?
I don’t want to play this game. I wouldn’t even want to win if I did!
I’m sorry. I got worked up. I’ll continue my thoughts on this next week.
I should go nibble on a carrot in the sun.
Typing isn’t good for my paws.
~ loy
