In Lin Yutang's "Clouds in Beijing", there is a scene in which the Yao family buried antiques in the ground of the yard to escape the war. Mulan asked her father, "What if these treasures are dug away by others?" Master Yao said, "The antiques of the Zhou Dynasty have been handed down to this day. Three thousand years passed, and hundreds of masters passed among them. Who can keep them forever? " Yes, there is one thing in your hands, that is, fate, life is limited, and the ownership relationship between any rare treasure and its owner is short-lived.
Scanning with the long lens of history, ownership is sometimes just a fairy tale.
Zhang Boju, a generation of celebrities, loved antique calligraphy and painting all his life, devoted all his collection of famous relics, and finally donated all his money to the country.
Bill Gates, the richest man in the world, announced at his 50th birthday that he would donate tens of billions of dollars of wealth to the society. Coincidentally, Warren Buffett, a 75-year-old American billionaire, the world's second richest man and stock god, announced that he would donate 85% of his personal wealth and 37 billion dollars to five charitable foundations in the United States, of which 30 billion dollars would be donated to the Bill Gates Foundation, which is the largest amount of personal charitable donations in American history.
The donations of Gates, Buffett and Zhang Boju are all based on the same cultural context: the beauty of life lies in the process rather than the ending, and any form of wealth is mobile, and the donation behavior makes it go where it belongs.
As long as we can remember, we have been eager to "own", including dolls, toy guns, picture books and balls, candy and prizes, as well as this and that. When "possession" is associated with wealth, the content behind this verb seems to be that the more the better, including not only material things, but also power or other things. Most people grow up when they are eager to "have".
When I was a child, I saw my grandmother doing needlework for a clothing factory, wearing reading glasses and grinding thick calluses on her hands with needlework. All the ten or five dollars she earned were put into a thin red passbook. 1998, when she died, there were more than 10,000 yuan in the passbook, which my uncle took out for the funeral. I saved my life's money just to have a sum of savings that made me feel at ease. In the end, all these savings melted overnight in the blowing and singing of Taoist nuns. On the day of the funeral, the neighbors of the whole street came to eat tofu rice and looked at more than a dozen tables of neighbors and relatives who raised their glasses and waved chopsticks. I think, if grandma hadn't worked hard for the numbers in the passbook, there would have been delicious crabs, delicious sparerib soup and fresh grass eggs on the dinner table in my life.
More than 10,000 yuan, how many years can the family dining table in the sixties and seventies be rich! However, in the end, these accumulated wealth turned into money and a seemingly extravagant tombstone.
More than 20 years ago, in order to save some money, my grandmother once swallowed her words and saved a life that she could have lived very well into countless wrinkled days. Sadly, after more than 20 years, there are still many low-income families who scrimp and save, squeezing a well-off life that could have been well-fed into a miserable life, just to own commercial housing.
Ownership makes some people become financial slaves, while others become house slaves.
When I received the rings and necklaces handed down by my grandmother as relics, I really couldn't imagine that those Huang Cancan products were used for anything other than being thrown in the drawer as souvenirs of my ancestors. Similarly, twenty or thirty years later, how will the younger generation feel sorry for their elders who once paid a heavy price for the "sky-high" commercial housing in the face of these dilapidated buildings with outdated facilities?
Indeed, when we enter a short life, sometimes enjoyment is more important than possession. Renting several sets of wedding dresses is enough to make the bride shine at the wedding, while owning several sets of wedding dresses will make your wardrobe crowded for a lifetime. Renting different houses at different stages will make people feel different living atmosphere and natural environment, but for the working class, I'm afraid their financial revenue and expenditure will change from "one million failure" to "ten million failure".
Ownership is just a fairy tale, but this fairy tale sometimes accompanies us all our lives and turns us into slaves. After all, too many people in life sacrifice real enjoyment for ownership.
Do we really need so many things? I mean, do we really need to "own" so many things? Don't! As far as the finiteness of life is concerned, it is more important to use and enjoy, rather than to own property rights. From a philosophical point of view, nothing is eternal, and "ownership" only defines the rational order in economic life.
In the Internet age, when the golden rule of "wealth accumulation is in direct proportion to time" is broken, the evaporation of wealth is of course no longer in direct proportion to time. Getting rich and going bankrupt seem to be stories overnight.
Therefore, for individuals, the real value of property lies in use rather than possession. Gates understands this, Buffett understands this, and I wonder if friends who are trying to "own" the ownership also understand this.