Painful
That's what I said as I was leaving Graham’s office. Graham is a kind man in his mid-fifties who lost his left arm and now has a wooden hook. For some reason, his sparkling personality didn’t match my preconceived idea of someone who has lost a limb. Maybe I was expecting him to be more pirate-ish, grunting and drinking rum straight from a barrel. He works for one of those companies that will buy your car in any condition, either to re-sell it or to scrap it.
Trying to sell my old car was becoming an annoying and time-consuming pain in the ass. After a couple of failed attempts, someone suggested paying Graham a visit. The process was quick and hassle-free. In fact, I wanted to tell him that selling my car to him had been a pain-free experience, but the word that came out was painful. It was one of those awkward brain-fart moments where you mean to say one thing and something else comes out.
We closed the deal and I rushed out so I could catch a bus home. I took around 30 steps before I was beaten by the urge to turn my head and look at my tiny Volkswagen one last time. The white morning frost that built up the night before had gone away. Somehow, the car looked cleaner than ever, almost brand new.
I held back tears, this was painful indeed. I felt like I was rewatching a scene from Wall-e or Toy Story 3, you surely know which ones. You see, this was my first car, the car I had idealised and dreamed of having since I was a teenager. And now, on a cold December morning, I was walking away from it, forever.
Where were these feelings coming from? Well, Buddhism knows the answer:
Attachment
It turned out I was more attached to my car than I thought. Inadvertently, this car felt like an extension of my being. We shared some traits too: we were both small, compact, reliable, a bit old-fashioned and made a lot of weird funny noises. Kinda like those situations where dogs and dog owners look alike.
Why I felt so bummed out? Was I attached to the metal, plastic and rubber that made up this clunky car? Of course not, that was absurd. I even had a replacement waiting for me at home: a bigger, newer, more modern car. So, what was it?
And then it hit me: the memories.
Memories of driving up and down the country to attend football matches, of road trips and dates with the missus, of long lonely drives listening to music or having conversations with myself. The first nervous drive in the snow, the warm summer drives to the beach.
I had laughed, cried, fought, kissed and slept in that car. Five years of memories were made inside that piece of metal, plastic and rubber. And now, that chapter was over.
Between my mental ramblings, I thought about Graham too: What would he think of this nonsense? He lost an arm, something that was physically attached to his body, a REAL piece of him. Could he empathise with my feelings? I still had my memories, after all. He didn’t have his arm.
Later that day, still curious about understanding this feeling, I found this fascinating video about the endowment effect. It explains how we develop a sense of possession from a very early age and that we tend to overestimate the value of the things we own over everyone else’s. It’s a short but great watch:
What else am I attached to? My phone, clothes, games, books, furniture, gifts… How many of those could I give up tomorrow if needed?
Buddhism says that ‘attachment is the root of all suffering’ and it’s hard to dispute. Should we not care about anything then, thus becoming happier? Should we leave all our belongings and relationships behind to start a new life in Tibet?
That seems a bit extreme - how about we start smaller?
Sure, we could become a bit better at choosing what things we grow attached to. Instead of a car, a new pair of shoes or the latest iPhone, let’s care and suffer about things that really matter: our partner, our friends, our family, our pet, our children, our childhood memories, our goals and our dreams.
Yes, each of those attachments comes with a painful punch to the stomach that one day we will have to endure. Nevertheless, we cannot go through life avoiding suffering because we would be avoiding life itself.
This wonderful and finite experience of joy, discovery, learning and suffering is what makes life so fascinating, and so worth living, even if we were to lose an arm.