My attempt to explore the nature of our mysterious attachments

A Maldivian writer friend this week told me she had a novel that I must read and in fact happens to be one I very much have been looking forward to read since years ago.

The book in question is "One Hundred Years of Solitude" authored by Colombian writer Gabriel García Márquez in 1967, and through a "magical realism" style, even makes references to the Colombian army's massacre of thousands of striking plantation workers in 1928.

But it seems there is a little problem which prevents my friend, who is also a fellow blogger, from lending me the book. It became a deep attachment as an emotional companion through a very significant time in her life. She said she will lend it as soon as she can work out this attachment.

I understand the implications actually. I too have some books which I feel very emotionally attached to, such as Nobel literature prize winning British author William Golding’s 1954 novel “Lord of the Flies” about a group of boys stranded on an island and turn murderous when faced with the survival animal instincts of Nature.

The nature of my attachment to the book is that I feel so attached to it I don’t feel like even lending it to another friend although my possessiveness cannot result in any benefit to another person as long as I don’t decide to part with it for some days so that my sharing can result in the borrower being able to read it.

It so happened that, before BookDepository.com closed down, I had placed an order for it, and due to some mishaps in the delivery, they ended up sending me two copies, which resulted in me gifting one copy to a research-writer Maldivian friend from my Science Education Centre (now Centre for Higher Secondary Education) days who had gifted me a book of Jalaluddin Rumi’s poetry translated into Dhivehi by Maldivian writer Jadulla Jameel.

The nature of my attachment to “Lord of the Flies” is such that, the very fact of it being in my possession, that I can hold it in my hands any time I want, and read it countless times at my leisure, give me an inexplicable sense of immense happiness and unending satisfaction.

The apex happiness of one of my Maldivian writer friends is collecting his favorite books in all their different vibrant covers and jackets. For instance, he collects Michael Crichton’s “Jurassic Park” (the first book) in every different cover that it was published. At the time I used to think that was unnecessary because the content will be the same. But later I began to understand when I started developing attachments to my own books, CDs, LDs, and even audio and video cassettes.

It may not be a fetish of sorts. It could be somewhat like "mugoali elhun" where we feel a kind of content with even a simple act such as passing by the dwelling of anyone we have an affection for.

That said, for some reason I don't know yet, I recently was jerked out of my years-long forgetting - or ignorance - of what happened to my most dearly held attachments. It happened when a Maldivian writer friend, without giving me a heads-up, recently returned two issues of my Granta print editions I didn't know he had borrowed a loooong time back! I had already forgotten what had happened to their fate and was immensely glad they came into my possession again. One edition covered different writers’ experiences of their mothers, while the other edition covered various writers’ experiences of the Industrial Revolution – something we definitely need to know.

Further examples of the loss of my attachments include how I now have no memory of what happened to my Sony Discman and iPod and CDs. I think over time friends were borrowing and I wasn't noting down who took which and they were not bothered to return except for this one friend who returned the two Granta issues.

And let's not even start with what happened to my whole collection of Tintin and Asterix comics. They were damn expensive even back then and those were paid for, you guessed it right, by my parents as I was still in Majeediyya School and had no sources of income of my own.

May be the fault is mine that I lent them and didn't note down who took which. But at least I had a sense of altruism and the good intention that my possessions were of no use to other people if I don't share them so that they can benefit from my act of generosity and kindness (hope I don’t sound so shamelessly boastful).

People can be careless and insensitive. Now I don't have any tangible cultural products such as CDs, LDs, DVDs, etc. And no video games consoles too because I grew up at a time when some people of Maldives had a misperception that video games damaged television screens.

At this juncture in our communications, science, and technological development, I don't feel the need to buy Blu-ray discs as I can watch productions on streaming services such as Netflix and Amazon Prime. And there is the Schwack Cinema, too, if I want to watch action and 3D films.

And I can listen to my favorite songs from Spotify or YouTube by connecting my laptop and smartphone to my decades old but still in good condition Aiwa CD and cassette player (which replaced my Altec Lansing and Creative computer speakers) whenever I want to undergo a chest shattering experience of drums and bass.

Like it or not, even after so many years, I seem to be stuck on the first two albums of Linkin Park, the first four albums of Coldplay, and surprisingly or not, Alanis Morrisette’s “Thank You”, and Adele’s “Hello”. And if you would like to know, two of my daily staples are Linkin Park’s “In the end” (to remind me during my depression episodes that nothing really matters in the end whether it is life or death) and Coldplay’s “The hardest part” which makes me feel like a trippy ride through a tube of a world-class wave on my boogie board off Varunulaa Raalhugandu in Maldives’ capital Male’.

For still inexplicable reasons, I have given up a lot of attachments during my four decades on Earth, be it jogging, bodybuilding, swimming, snorkeling, scuba diving, and a short stint surfing on long boards and short boards.

The only physically touchable things that belong to me now are books and, based on my past negative experiences, I now don't lend them to people, not even friends, who don't maintain my standards of care and professional handling.

Which brings me back to the issue of the mysterious nature of our attachments we develop towards our outer reality, be it the animate environment, the flora and fauna, or inanimate objects like, say, our books and the concrete urban jungle I am used to living from the day I was born on this planet.

Are these "greedy habits" weird? Hehe. May be not so strange after all, I guess. Since we are sentient beings, it may be a natural instinct as individuals to react to our environment and in the process develop thoughts, emotions, and feelings - in addition to addictions and attachments - as a result of our decisions and interactions with both the personal and the impersonal universe.