The Illusion of Ownership – A story of paper.

This is a satirical article taking a critical look at the foundation of our society: paper.

You know, its quite an interesting concept we’ve created. This is mine, that is yours, I like yours, gimme some of yours, no? Well what if I trade you some of mine? No? OK I’ll take what is yours, now its mine HAH! Oh no! Someone took what was yours, that became mine, and now its theirs!!

So why is ownership an illusion?

Think about anything you think you own. That car, is it yours? Someone takes it, now who owns it? You still do? Why? Oh, that piece of paper says you do? OK, well yeesh, why didn’t you say so, the ALMIGHTY paper! Does it have one of those fancy stamps on it? COOL! Got those squiggly signatures too?! COOL! That sure looks like a great official piece of paper, I guess you DO own that car! But where is the car? Oh, you lost it? Someone else took it? But that doesn’t mean they own it right? NO of course not, they don’t have one of those exquisite little papers!

Ownership is an illusion because you simply cannot control anything. At any point in time, that which you think you own could leave you. You’ll no doubt stomp your feet about it and wave your papers around, maybe try to get others to help you recuperate it, you know, because they like your fancy papers too, but it’ll still leave you.

The concept of ownership can only exist in the agreement of it from others.

Agreements. That’s what those fancy little papers are right? Agreements. If we all agree to what the paper says, then that makes it so, right? So then you never actually own a damn thing, its just that everyone is agreeing about your ownership so you deceive yourself into that cozy place that makes you feel secure that IT’S YOURS!

Marriage

We humans really love owning other humans. We try to own our children, we try to own our religious congregations, we try to own our nations, and a select few sociopaths really try to own the world. Marriage in today’s world has become no different. In its original form as a ritual of love under God, all is well, but in modern society, marriage has become allllllll about ownership. Sure the happy little couple might have something else in mind, but lets not mistake the modern day fiasco for anything other than what it is: ownership. You lay down vows for one another, swearing to the other that now and forever you will be theirs, you perhaps do this before God as your witness, with some holy man to anoint you, and as if that wasn’t enough, lets run off to the Government to get this paper signed and sealed! YAY PAPERS! We do love our papers. This particular paper really seals the deal… or… well… it used to…. now we got other papers that can cancel that marriage paper… but boy if you do, look out! I’m going to take EVERYTHING you own!!! We’ll go to court and fight about whose papers are more legitimate than the others, who has more rights to the stuff of the others, then some pompous ass sitting on a high chair (who seriously used to wear a wig to make himself holier than thou) will declare what will become mine vs yours. He’ll smack his hammer down and other people will scurry off to put it all on paper. MMMMMM paper! That sweet smell of ownership!

Houses

So… for generations your family has lived in this house. Perhaps your great grandpappy built it with his bare hands! This land and that house is YOURS, and you even got one of those great official looking papers to prove it! Then one day, some fancy assholes wearing the same weird clothes show up with ANOTHER piece of paper that says the entire land and property is now THEIRS! HAH! BUSTED! THEIR PAPER TRUMPS YOUR PAPER! Why? Oh hell I don’t know, check the dates… oooooh their date is newer than yours… check the stamps… yes yes very nice, their stamps are EMBOSSED! Oh, and whats that? They have an army behind their papers? Wow that’s pretty badass, a whole bunch of humans with fancy metal symbols ready to beat you and imprison you if you don’t agree that THEIR papers are more legitimate than YOURS!

So go on, get the fuck out of that house, its not yours anymore. Some new piece of paper says so! And because of that new piece of paper, you just take your children and go live in the streets, adopt a total shit life because, you know, that paper is the al-fucking-mighty!

Wars

As sad as it is, a piece of paper can rally a whole swarm of gun wielding maniacs to fly half way around the world and murder other people, complete with righteous indignation! Why? Well because that paper said so! Well, we didn’t actually SEE the paper, but we trust that guy with those shiny metals, he said he got the paper, so, thats good enough. Shiny metals are really respected, we do love our shiny metals. If you have more shiny metal than another person, you get to own them too! I mean, at least thats what we all agreed on. So don’t go messing with the program buster! Agreements are agreements!

Governments

So yea, let’s all do what our masters tell us to do. At one point in time we created the government, then, they somehow flipped some fancy papers on us and totally reversed the situation! We used to own the government and now the government owns us! DAMN those pesky papers can bite you sometimes. I know I never voted to give away my money to some other person, but somehow, there’s a freakin paper that says I have to! If I don’t, those shiny metal people come and beat me up. I guess they really believe in that paper too. I really don’t know how this all happened, it used to be that the PEOPLE owned the Government, but now….. now it is quite clear that the Government owns us!!

Wait, wtf is the Government? Is it a big beastie with huge muscles and sharp teeth? Noooooo… does it have a heartbeat? Noooooooo…. its not even a living being! So wtf is it? Seems more like a CONCEPT we all agreed to!!! Its made up of a shit ton of papers that we still all agree to everyday, and every human being that “Works” for the Government is simply just agreeing to enforce what all those very fancy papers say!

So how is it that these huge piles of papers can write new papers that make all us slaves run off and kill other slaves of other governments for god only knows what real fucking reasons? OH I guess its those sociopaths we mentioned earlier! They have those shiny metals and some fancy stamps that give them the power to make NEW papers all willy-nilly! Wow must be nice to own so many humans and be able to take all the shit they think they own if they don’t do what you say! Just don’t fucking forget, WE AGREED TO THIS!

Money

Now this one is really kinda funny. Money. Little pieces of… you guessed it, PAPER, with super cool designs on them and fancy words and, OH YEA, “SIGNATURES” (those are always important squigglies) and portraits of way dead enslavers who wrote a lot of the original papers we all still mindlessly agree to. These unique little papers have the power to overrule other papers! If i have this paper that says I own something, you can give me a bunch of that money paper which convinces me to sign another paper giving YOU ownership over it! We exchange a bunch of paper with fancy signatures and stamps and dead people portraits and we’re all happy about our NEW ownerships!

I really don’t know why we all agree these funny little papers are so valuable! My baby shat all over my wallet and you know what? People STILL loved to take those stinky little papers in exchange for all kinds of stuff I wanted to own. I tried another piece of shit paper but it just didn’t have the same effect… maybe it needs more signatures, yes we do like signatures, VERY important!

So most the time I think I own my money paper, but still yet, every once in awhile, some random person comes and takes all that too. But its ok, I can slave out my labor and if I sweat enough, they’ll hand me MORE of that money paper! Though, times have changed, and you don’t really get handed money paper anymore. So today, I guess they give all my paper to this thing called a “bank”. They give me a web page which promises me some digits on a screen can be exchanged for real paper if I went in to their office and asked them nicely. They even give me some cool little PLASTIC! The plastic can be used in these funny machines to get me out MORE PAPER so long as the machine says I have enough digits for it.

I’m so glad we all agree this particular paper is so valuable, otherwise I’d barely be able to wipe my ass with it! Have you seen how small and scratchy it is? Not very useful!

So I give my sincere thanks to humanity…

We all agree if you sign my marriage paper, I own you.

If you get a newer paper than mine, you own my house.

I’ll kill whomever a paper tells me to.

Our governments are huge piles of paper that own us.

And bitcoin ain’t paper so will never have any REAL value!

Don’t you change your fucking minds! We agreed!