Ownership

This morning I woke up to the sound of rain and a cold breeze blowing through my window. I have to say it was refreshing, and I lay for perhaps twenty minutes listening to it. I considered taking pictures of the sunrise too, for in the east there was a break in the dark clouds where the golden sky was shining through. It was truly beautiful.

Moments like these make me think that there must be something more to life than most people realise. Perhaps those who fail to appreciate the pure and intense beauty of the sunrise and are too self absorbed to take it in should sit for a while in silence. Do we really understand how small we are? How insignificant? No, of course we don't, I personally believe it's beyond our comprehension, yet perhaps the beauty in the world is put there to remind us of it. I mean, we don't control the rain, or the sunrise. We can sit and watch both, but we don't own them. Perhaps the best and most important things in the world are things that we are unable to own. Just like other people, you can never truly own another person, and who would want to? Really, the unconditional love that may be expressed from one person to another is one thing, but owning them undermines that.

Over the past day I guess I've taken a bit of a look back into the past few months. Looking from the perspective I have now I can see just how lucky I am that things have turned out how they are. Leaving Alex, for instance, was probably the best decision I have made in the last five years. And beginning something with Mark, a man who has never failed to express love and appreciation for and to me, well, that was a great decision too. But I would never claim to own Mark, he may have given himself freely, but that doesn't mean he's my property. Yet I see it every day: people claiming ownership over something that cannot belong to them because it doesn't belong to anyone.

The same, I guess, could be applied to Music and Writing. Once the documents are out in the public domain no one can really claim ownership to how people react. The author can claim ownership over the effort and how the words are put together, and rightly so, but to try and make people think a certain way about something is just wrong. At the same time though, if the book or song causes outrage, people want someone to blame. At the end of the day it's the individual's choice how they let things like that effect them, and we need to remember that any opinion that causes a stir is pushing the text or song further into the limelight.

Perhaps this could also be argued about religion. In my eyes, certainly, it is wrong to try and own another person's beliefs by forcing our own onto them. I've seen evangelical Christian's doing this many times, and I have to say, for someone supposedly infused with the love of Christ, these people aren't really acting with the compassion and love that he showed. And the irony behind it is so clear to other believers, but those who don't believe have a hard time seeing where the goodness of God's love comes in. Jesus may have gone out and preached, but the people came to him to listen, just like people go to music festivals. How would you feel if a band that you'd never even heard of came and played in your living room without invitation until two O'clock in the morning?

The worst thing, perhaps, about arguments like these is that the media tries to assign blame and ownership to everything. I suppose it encourages us, as the people, to believe we can own anything we want to, when that's clearly not the case. I know that I shall never let anyone truly own me. People can claim they own me as much as they want but it doesn't make it true. I intend to stay with Mark, but he doesn't own me and I wouldn't dream of pretending I own him. I am best friends with Hayley, but only she can choose to feel the same about me. I can no more own them than I can own the clouds.