Detached or Dangling?

At first blush this affirmation seemed an encouraging lofty ideal, but the more I thought about it the more complicated it became.  What is this assertion actually saying?

It strikes me that owning nothing is not detachment in the first place.  Owning nothing likely has more to do with lack... of income for starters, of education, of access to a living wage, of a support network (family, friends or community), of good health, of luck.  It might also have to do with lack of....energy, ambition, encouragement, self esteem,  hope.  All of these being an essay unto themselves.

So owning nothing might not be the focus here, but detachment, and if so, from what? Are we to detach ourselves from persons, places and things?  Distancing ourselves from people, does that eliminate love, friendship, family?  Can we be attached to kindred spirits and yet be detached? Where might the line between attached to the point of suffocating and detached to the point of nurturing be? Do we carry on, marching to our own drum and avoid friendships of people, care nothing about our partners, children or parents. And what about the death of a person we are attached to, do we slide into a deep depression, toss them aside with the attitude...people die all the time.   Do we give a wide berth to the security of place: home, church, community or even loving a vacation spot or treasured vista?

And what about things? Detachment to the point of not going into deep depression when something is lost...as in stolen, broken is not as difficult a task as losing someone. ( Death takes a toll but it too can be calmed with time and does not own us.) However all too often we can become attached, desperately, to things, as in possessions or the accumulation of them.  And attached to actions, beliefs, efforts, can also destroy our lives if their intent becomes contrary to the general good of humanity....which too is up for widespread disagreement!

Being owned, ourselves, by our own attachment to situations is a personal demon we continually struggle against. Or perhaps we don't struggle, but simply flow with the current of time and events and become the person we are with little resistance to our circumstances.  And sometimes we are happy. And sometimes we are not.

Which brings me around to my on going frustration with the citizenry..that being us!...being owned by big money. Big money which seems to own our Democracy, which maybe was never a democracy in the first place, we just were to naive to notice. Hasn't the top 1% been the ruling class all along? Which is the third topic for another conversation!

I would like to think I'm owned by a few important values and have solved a few of my own attachments. I have no answers, only dangling questions for your own thoughtful minds.