Days like today make me seriously question the mental health of the European settlers that thought this “New World” was really worth conquering. I live in Toronto, and over the past week we’ve received close to to feet of snow in some places.

Horrific winters. Natives that are rightfully pissed that you’ve decided to stake claims. It’s amazing how far people will go, and how blind to obstacles they can become, when the opportunity to possess shows up.

So often when we trace every sin back, we find the root, the first sin, to be pride. But ownership, it seems, is a viable candidate (and I’m not speaking strictly of material ownership) or at least an interesting re-framing of the concept. It’s hard to know what is really antecedent: the desire to own (whether it be reputation or glory or self-approval) or the validation to pursue own (I’m great, so I will seek to own).

On this blog, two recent topics of discussion have been place (as in, finding yours), and side (as in, picking a political one). I think so many of the qualms, grievances, and tragedies that take place in either private or public life come down to matters of ownership and the struggle to obtain it.

The real animosity surfaces when we realize that in fact there are no Deeds to be had, and so the rest really becomes a matter of saving face or continuing on in struggle as the struggle is all you know. Or, perhaps in the realization striving increases, as one tries to assert that for them, things are different.

None of this is say that life is simply a matter of pursing ownership and realizing there is none to be had. Just consider; where there is struggle or failure or conflict, perhaps the impetus to own is working against you.