Edward Britton
Underlying every aspect of human interaction is a simple, single question: who owns you?
Everything you’ve ever been told or taught about religion, sociology and political science attempts to answer that question. Religion says “God (as perceived by human apes)” owns you. Political science and sociology insist that the state or the group own you. If you don’t trust government or those who ally themselves with various political or religious ideologies, chances are excellent that you have concluded that you own yourself. If you act on or otherwise voice that conclusion, be warned that you’re likely to catch crap from all quarters. How DARE you be so arrogant as to declare that you own yourself when all of the rest of the world is sending you contradictory information–that He, She, It or They own you?
Nevertheless, consider likewise that underlying every definition of the word “own” as it is used as a verb is a single characteristic, and that characteristic is CONTROL. Who or what CONTROLS you, and to the degree that your answer is anyone or anything other than yourself, can you truly claim that you OWN yourself? If control is the one characteristic common to all the myriad means of describing the concept of ownership, can you truly OWN yourself if someone or some entity exercises ultimate control of your life or how you live it?
How about your property? Is your property not as much an extension of yourself, your life and your life’s efforts as are the wrinkles on your face, your fingerprints or the color of your eyes? In whatever city, county, state or country in which you now reside, do you have the ultimate right to do with your property, INCLUDING yourself, as you see fit provided that you do not interfere with the rights of others? If you do not, then how can you say that you truly “own” anything–much less your own life?
Again, I ask who owns you? Does it matter to you if you come to the realization that you do not or no longer own yourself? If it does, what do you propose to do about the situation?
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♦EMn: In spite of the ills of self-ownership, the question itself “who own you?” bypasses those ills and leaves the question standing firm, waiting for an answer, which should be imo, not me, and not you either.