What You Really Own
I recently lose the mathnuscripts.com domain and it has made me reflect on a fundamental question about creation and ownership that is key to this discussion.
I have come up to see that there are those who create and there are those who owner. There are those who build and there are those who take ownership of the things that people build. The question is not whether to place judgement or morality but simply to understand.
The true is that never owned the Mathnuscripts domain, I never Shukran, I never owned a girlfriend. These things were rented but gave the illusion of ownership. In this is the case, they want did I truly own? Well, everything and nothing. I own the writing to the Mathnuscripts and I have mind to keep writing them. I own the vision and the context of knowledge of Shukran which cannot be taken from me. I own the love I had and the memories that were good with my exes.
What was lost? Everything and nothing. The material things like the domain, the shareholding and the person were lost. But the spirit remains, the writings and the intellect to write them, the vision of the company and the experience of how to lead another one better, the good memories and the bitter learnings of the end of a relationship. These things cannot be taken from a man. They are not rented because there is nothing to rent. They can be given but they can never really be lost. They are simply reclaimed by the creator. An owner will seek to take these things through coercion, guilt-tripping and lack of transparency but the creator can eventually train themselves to see through the lies and slice through the fog of smoke and mirrors. The creator can finally see what really matters, which this:
"The object that truly matters was their time, attention and energy that they places into creation. The creation may be valuable but the soul once lost cannot be reignited. Something will always be missing. The engine that hums not from the pursuit of profit but the pursuit of doing the great, the kind, the loving, and the impossible. Once the creator is gone, the creations becomes soulless. It doesn't inspire anymore. It may be profitable, which is good for owners but it lack imagination, it lacks the ability to change the world for the better, it lack finesse."
Examples are many. When Steve Jobs died, Apple has never been the same. It's owners are wealthier than ever but the company doesn't innovate as it used to anymore. The founder is no more and he took the company with him. When Napoleon was exiled, France was not the same without his leadership. His empire yearns for him to return and he did, but was ultimately sent back to exile. His leadership was so magnetic, his vision to clear, his understanding lush and bright that people no choice but to accept him as emperor. They could not resist the name he has made of himself. He made the name Napoleon great.
The core essence to changing the world, is that most things are rented, but the things that you own are not as material but matter more than we think.
- Your name
- Your character
- Your mindset
- Your abilities
- Your knowledge and experience
- Your accomplishments
- Your failures
What are the things we think we own but we don't. We simply rent them from this experience and ultimately leave them behind
- Your house
- Your car
- Your company
- Your family
- Your clothes
- Your titles
- Your status
- Even your wealth
These things can and will eventually evade you. Whether it is through mistakes, theft or death. The time will come when these things will go fly away like butterfly, never to be seen again. At this moment, you may be feeling sad. Why would these things that I care about deeply and define my identity leave me eventually? What am I supposed to be without them? Great question and I have an answer.
Accept the things you have now, especially the supposedly owned. Enjoy them fully while you can in this experience. If you have a great family, spend time with them. If you have a great career, do the best you can. If you have an amazing and successful company, make the most of it. If you have a nice car, drive your heart out. Don't take them for granted, but I know you will. We all take the things we have for granted as some point. We assume they will never go away, so why get too clingy about it. But this is not about clingyness. Move with the flow of your own experience. You can defend them, nurture and protect the things you supposedly owned. This is not just a good thing but a requirement to enjoy the things you owned. However, do not make them define who you are.
This brings me to my next point, on what you actually own. Own your story, the narrative that you tell yourself. Imagine yourself as an 80-year old on a warm Sunday morning. You sit by the window having your breakfast and you are reflecting on your life. What would you be most proud of? What would make you smile? What would make you frown? What would be make you relive some pain and how the overcoming of it was a show of pure strength and will? Who were you to others when they were your friends, subordinates, authority or simply strangers? Did you live the life that you wanted to live or did you live for other people's approval? Did you take the driver's seat in life or did you take a backseat?
Important questions these ones. May they give you perspective on what really matters when the world is crumbling around you. When life is beating you hard and showing you that all the things you had can and will be taken away from you. May you know that you have something left and it is the only thing you will ever need.
"A king may move a man, a father may claim a son, but that man can also move himself, and only then does that man truly begin his own game. Remember that howsoever you are played or by whom, your soul is in your keeping alone, even though those who presume to play you be kings or men of power. When you stand before God, you cannot say, 'But I was told by others to do thus,' or that 'virtue was not convenient at the time.' This will not suffice. Remember that".
King Baldwin IV of Jerusalem from the Movie Kingdom of Heaven
Your soul and all its creation is the greatest thing you can ever own. It is the world and everything in it. Your soul is the magnet to all good things but it is also the most attacked. You are in a war that you were not told you are in. Everything is either seeking to uplift or bring you down. You will have allies who are secretly enemies and you will have enemies who are secretly your greatest source of transcendence.
Keep creating for God made you to create. But all, thrive to own a some of what you create and enjoy it fully. Don't own greedly but own it confidently. For there will come a time when it eludes you and when that time comes, may you have no regrets but fine memories. May you stand before God and say with confidence, not pride, that I did good and great things, I lived a good life and helped other do the same. That you followed his tenets and principles and where a great steward of his Earth and everything in it. You fought the good fight and even though it cost you your life, life now knows your name.