I have come to realize that attaching ourselves to objects, people, ideas, and old feelings is one of the things that makes us saddest in life. Attachment has created a great big sort of wrapping of thick, heavy garments around us, cloaking, protecting, swaddling, swathing, and ultimately smothering us. If we took them off, however, we would be naked as newborn babes, which isn’t what we want either. But we may be ready to lighten the heavy outerwear we cover ourselves with, which, over time, has become jumbled up with the concept of who we are.
Attachment is like a sticky, fibrous, oozing glop of stuff that prevents us from moving freely through our lives. I think if we weren’t attached to things we particularly loved, and instead let them go, we would be happier. If we weren’t attached to people, but simply loved them, freely, we would be happier. If we weren’t attached to our thoughts, our prejudices, our ideas, our opinions, we would be happier. And even being attached to feelings we’ve had from long ago can be reassessed. Perhaps it’s time to take those off too, and see what we’re really feeling underneath.
The sticky, smothering attachment that has created layer upon layer around us feels exhausting. It makes our spirit opaque. If we began by scraping off some simple attachments we all have, like regret, reproach, and clinging, from our psyches, wouldn’t we feel fresher and clearer? More lighthearted? More at peace? Happier?
The word “attachment” originally meant arresting someone; to ‘attach’ meant to seize or take property or goods. What an aggressive word! (The usage that connected the word with devotion and attraction came much later and attachments in emails came later still.) Let’s not allow ourselves to be imprisoned by our attachment to property or goods. Or to thoughts. Or to old stories that make us sad. Let’s not fasten onto them, or allow them to fix onto us. Don’t hold on to things. Let it all be like sparkles dancing on water.