The Possession Completion Delusion

I connect with certain material objects on a level that is so deep that I find the gravitational pull both disturbing and fascinating. For example, I have a great watch collection, but when I see the spy photos of the supposedly up-and-coming G-Shock Frogman GWF-D1000BC-1JF, I say to myself that I must positively own this watch. This watch is me. This watch completes me, and a barrage of other similar nonsense. This gravitational pull is not limited to watches. A student brought her brand new shiny black Lenovo Legion 5 with an Ultra 7 processor to class. It was built like a tank. I was in love with it. I don’t need a laptop, but I felt incomplete without it. This laptop is more than a laptop. It is an extension of me. My cerebral cortex knows my thoughts are completely absurd. My reptilian brain stem, on the other hand, has other ideas. Depending on which side of my brain wins the arm wrestling match, my pocketbook may or may not suffer. 

One thing is clear. I suffer from The Possession Completion Delusion: the irrational conviction that a particular object will resolve some vague incompleteness in the self. You don’t merely want the Frogman; you recognize yourself in it. The Legion isn’t simply a laptop with specifications grotesquely beyond your needs; it feels like the physical manifestation of the person you imagine yourself to be. The cerebral cortex understands that no consumer product can complete a human being. The reptilian brain replies, “Fine. But have you seen the OLED?”