In the age of non-things,
there is something almost utopian
about the notion of possession.
Possession is characterized by
an intimacy and inwardness.
For a thing to be a possession, I must have
an intense relationship with it.
You do not possess an electronic gadget.
Because we no longer possess them, consumer goods
quickly end up on the rubbish heap.
Possession is something internalized and psychologically charged.
Things in my possession are vessels filled with emotions and recollections.
The history that things acquire in the course of being used for a long time
gives them souls and turns them into things close to the heart.
Only discrete things, however can be animated
by intensive libidinal ties and become things close to the heart.

Today’s consumer goods are indiscreet, intrusive and over-expressive.
They come loaded with prefabricated ideas
and emotions that impose themselves on the consumer.
Hardly anything of the consumer’s life enters into them.

– Excerpt Non-things by Byung-chul Han, page 15, pub. 2021

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I thought about the sentences quoted above.  Do they not capture an important aspect of the way-we-live, our form of life in the early 21st century?  My day to day life involves frequently consulting my iphone 13 for information of various types.  I used my iphone 6 for many years, until it was so outdated that its usefulness was impaired.  I never considered holding on to the old phone, as a cherished artifact, a repository of memories.  Perhaps the components of the old phone were recycled for a renewed use?  Or are the phone’s heavy metals adding to the toxicity of a landfill somewhere…

Here are some possessions, things close to my heart that have meaning, a tie to memory: