A personal but brutally honest exploration of what ownership really means: Physically, psychologically, spiritually, and ethically.

What does it mean to “own” anything when everything external is temporary, conditional, and dependent on forces outside your control?

I’ve never truly felt that I “owned” anything in my life. not houses, not objects, not land, not even relationships. Every external thing I ever held eventually left my hands through force, theft, betrayal, choice, or time. I wouldn't be surprised if it came to happen again with what I have now accumulated. I'm simply expressing myself to what I know you be true based on lived experience.

Despite everything being lost on me by those means mentioned above, something we still remained: The part of myself that observes, chooses, interprets, and remembers.

That’s the first truth:

Ownership is temporary. Awareness is the only constant.

Socrates believed you cannot “own” anything external because anything external can be taken from you. Aristotle said property is useful but never part of your essence. In Stoic thought, nothing that can be removed is truly yours and only your character and judgments are.

Even Jesus taught this same idea:
“Store not treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy.”
He wasn’t talking about minimalism. He was stating a metaphysical fact that nothing external can ever truly belong to you because it decays, changes hands, and slips through time.

Time itself is the great thief.
Everything we cling to eventually returns to dust.

Legal Ownership Is Conditional Permission

People love to point to paperwork(deeds, contracts, spiritual filings, trusts) as if the state will bow to them. But every legal claim depends entirely on the belief in the system, compliance by the system, and the state’s capacity to enforce that compliance.

I would argue that is not true ownership but a conditional access granted by an external hierarchy. A hierarchy that I do not deny is merely a secondary extension of a human condition that is undoubtedly based on superstitious idiotology.

Authority is a superstition backed by violence.
Property only exists as long as power chooses not to remove you.

Philosophical realism says the world is what it is, not what we wish it to be. Property, under realism, is not metaphysical, but a social invention sustained by force.

Even Jesus acknowledged this distinction when He said, “Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s.” Not because Caesar deserved it, but because Caesar had the swords.

He had undeniably a strong influence of power granted to him by the same belief I am pointing out. Without which, he would be just another crazed lunatic wanting control.

The state doesn’t recognize ownership.
It recognizes compliance.

Responsibility Over Possession

If nothing external can be permanently kept, then what is actually yours?

My answer, from experience:

• Our decisions,

• Our internal stance,

• Our impact on others,

• the way we interpret reality,

• and the observer behind our thoughts.

I’ve made people laugh, cry, grow, or break. I’ve inspired revelations in some and destroyed trust in others. These effects of good or bad I have made unto myself and others are the only things I fully “own." For they live with me in my own consciousness. Because they originated from me and became part of my story. These cannot be taken by any means of force.

They have become

The properties of our souls. Virtues and inner harmony. The treasures of the heart.

We will never own the external world except for our own choices.

The Observer: What Remains When All Else Falls Away

Everything physical eventually dissolves. Your body changes, your possessions vanish, your relationships shift, and your identity mutates with time. But the awareness behind the changes, the thing that experiences, that is the only consistent aspect of existence.

Whether it continues, transforms, or is recycled after death is not provable,but what is undeniable is that awareness outlasts every physical claim.

This, I believe, is what Jesus meant when He said,
“What does it profit a man to gain the whole world but lose his soul?”

Loss as Teacher: Letting Anger Exhaust Itself

At first, after losing everything dear to me, it left me furious. I felt violated, robbed, and highly destabilized. Eventually that anger burned out and the exhaustion taught me what logic alone couldn’t:

You cannot cling to what reality refuses to let you keep.

Meditation helped and soon my own perspective formed naturally. I didn’t force acceptance, instead I reached the point where resistance had nothing left to offer.

Now, if someone took everything I have today?
I'll most likely let them if it means keeping my life.

I can rebuild, adapt and I have the skills, the mind, and the internal discipline to start over.

Socrates said a person who has cultivated their inner self is “untouchable,” because nothing the world takes can make them lesser. Jesus said the meek (the disciplined, not the weak) inherit the earth because they cannot be broken by loss.

This is the strength that comes from surrendering to reality, not defeat. It can still be yours to have.

Cooperating naturally without coerced force and intimidation

Many people often argue that society needs a centralized authority to function, but reality contradicts that daily. Everyday families care for one another without government oversight. Neighbors lend sugar, tools, time, and labor without contracts. Communities build, fix, trade, and help without permits or paperwork. People cooperate naturally and they do it far more efficiently than any institution ever could.

When a mother braids her daughter’s hair, no government is present. When someone cooks for their loved ones, no authority is needed. When someone cuts the grass or helps a neighbor, it is voluntary good will, not coercion.

This is the nature of human beings:

Trade, cooperation, and mutual benefit are instinctive. Coercion is not.

Society existed long before governments claimed credit for it. Roads can be flattened by hands and machines directly created by people, not by “the state.” It is absurd to believe we can build cars, houses, and farms , but not a flat piece of land without a bureaucratic blessing.

We create order naturally. Authority hijacks it and claims it was theirs all along.

What I Truly Fear Losing and Why It Matters

After everything I’ve lived through, the things I genuinely fear losing are not material at all. Not my dignity, my mind, my ability to correct my mistakes and my internal freedom.

These are the only things that feel like “property” in any real sense. Not because they’re immortal, but because they originate from within and cannot be seized without my participation.

Qualities that no one can grant us and no one can strip away are wisdom, courage, integrity and clarity. Maybe you can name a few more but for now, these are the weight-bearing pillars of a life that cannot be stolen.

The Illusion of Control

Every attempt to claim ownership is really an attempt to negotiate with impermanence.

We cannot own the world, but we can shape ourselves. We cannot control outcomes, but we can control conduct.
We cannot guarantee permanence, but we can cultivate worth.

Humans like to cling to property because it gives them the illusion of control, stability, and certainty. However the universe doesn’t recognize our paperwork or our claims. Time, entropy, loss, and chance do not honor our contracts, and neither will governments.

What Remains When Everything Falls Away

When all is gone whether it be by personal choice, by force or even time, what stands remaining above all is the observer. The part of us that chooses, witnesses, interprets, creates meaning, carries memory and directs action is the closest thing to “true ownership” a human being has.

Even if we disagree on metaphysics, the point stands:

Everything outside is borrowed. Everything inside is cultivated.

One is temporary.
The other is your responsibility.

Power, Property, and the Only Real Freedom

Property exists only when it is respected or enforced by power. Legal systems exist only because people obey them. Authority exists because people believe in it. But none of that guarantees freedom.

Freedom is not granted by a state, and it is not found in owning things. Freedom is found in acting from your own mind, values, and awareness.

And here is the truth many avoid because it cuts too deep:

Liberty can never be achieved through blind obedience.™

The world doesn’t owe you permanence.
The universe doesn’t guarantee possession.
But you always have the ability to cultivate the internal wealth that outlasts every external loss.

In the end, that is the only property that matters, because it’s the only property no one can take unless you voluntarily give it away.