having vs. being

While watching a recent episode of CSI, I was reminded of the work of Eric Fromm. German socialist, philosopher, escapee of the Holocaust, and a father of modern psychology, Fromm theorized that humans have two basic orientations:
Having. And Being.
A person of the a "having" orientation seeks to acquire and possess. They seek to possess things- toys, cars, houses, property, money, even people. To possess is to exist. And to possess more... well, is to exist just a little bit better.
Someone in the "being" state derives intrinsic fulfillment from simply experiencing life. From sharing emotions, exchanging ideas, thoughts, experiences. From connecting with others and being fully engaged with the world around them. Life is about the journey, the love, the learning. Not the having.

And, it would seem, these two orientations are mutually exclusive. Much like having, it's all or nothing! One or the other. It's virtually impossible to both "have" and "be" at the same time.

Fromm made a sort of apocalyptic prediction of his own: a cultural spiral into total havingness. Defined as both progession and regression, our culture is possessed by it's possessions. Fromm felt that a culture so driven by commercialism, such as the one we live in today, is "doomed to the having orientation."

On CSI, Ray Langston (Laurence Fishburne) noted that in "1960 there was no such thing are public storage. Today there are over 2 billion square feet dedicated to it."
Doesn't seem to bode well for us, does it?

But the more we have, the deeper in we get. With the "things" come the bills, which obligate us to the jobs, the overtime, the credit cards, the mortgages, the promotions, the raises, the improvements we can now make to all the things. These things that we hold dear.
I'm reminded of yet another piece of cinematic gold, in which Harry Connick, Jr. mused "You’re talking about the American dream. You find something that you love and then you twist and you torture it, try to find a way to make money at it. You spend a lifetime doing that... and at the end you can’t find a trace of what you started out loving."

I spend a lot of time thinking about my possessions. Actually, how "the things you own, end up owning you" (props, Fight Club). I've dreamed quite wistfully of ridding myself of all my worldly possessions. Packing up the boxes that are so hard to thin down, so hard to let go of... and just... letting them go. Dropping them off, giving them away, tossing them in dumpsters. Lightening myself one box at a time.

Last night I stopped to consider how much space my truly personal, "irreplaceable" possessions would take up. Things like photos (which digital storage has made considerably more compact), letters, jewelry, other small tokens... it would fill but a small box. The rest, all that is not irreplaceable... is replaceable. The clothing, the games and CDs and movies, the computer, the phone, the truck, the books, the furniture, the technology and the entertainment. It's all replaceable. And therefore meaningless, really.
So why is it so hard to let go of? And why is it so easy to love?

What about my dream of shedding it all and leaving for the Peace Corps to live a beautiful life digging ditches in some impoverished country? What about my fantasy- the one where I hike around Europe with nothing but a backpack containing a couple sets of clothing, some maps, general survival gear, a lightweight tent and bedroll, camera, and as many notebooks as I can carry.
My fantasy of "being."
Currently impeded by my "having."