Love of Inanimates

The scent of love, passion for a person, or the indelible memory of cherished moments shared with someone does not remain confined to living beings. More often than not, they transform, and the soul of an animated life quietly takes abode in many inanimate forms.

The gentle folds that appear on our father's shirt, benevolently complementing his waistline, become a part of his identity. The lingering scent of our mother's clothes transports us to her time, no matter how many years have passed since they were last worn. The Mickey Mouse smiley on a toddler's onesie reminds us of how innocent, tender, and uncomplicated our little brother and his world once were. The chalk dust settled into the crease of our teacher's trouser pocket speaks of the never-ending centre of learning that person embodied.

Even a chair, violently broken in the midst of a heated conversation, becomes a keeper of memory. It tells a story of how terrible that day between two people must have been, and the fear, anger, or sorrow etched into that moment remains chilling long after the voices have faded.

Our actions, fortunately, leave impressions on the physical world. A criminologist may view them as material evidence. A scientist may regard them as data. A broken heart may see them as painful relics of a chapter it wishes to forget. A captain may display them as trophies of triumph. Yet, in one form or another, our actions often transform into inanimate objects.

In fact, we ourselves eventually become inanimate. Once we are gone, the watery chemistry of our bodies yields to dry dust and stone. What remains alive is not the body, but the impressions we leave behind.

Some choose to lift these impressions like a torch, carrying them with pride as treasured possessions. Others drag them like a heavy boulder chained to their feet, bearing the weight through the entirety of their lives. Memories that have found refuge in inanimate forms rarely leave us indifferent. They offer us only two companions: happiness and sorrow.

Neutral memories seldom survive this transformation. They find no object to inhabit, no keeper to preserve them. They are abandoned, becoming orphaned fragments of time. Nobody cherishes them, nobody fears them, and nobody returns to them. Ordinary moments, however necessary they may have been, rarely earn a permanent place in our emotional landscape.

A guilty mind fears not only the memory of its acts of treachery; it grows uneasy in the presence of the objects that witnessed them. Likewise, a grieving heart does not merely long for the face of a departed loved one. It clings to the remnants and routines that once shaped their physical world—the shirt hanging in a wardrobe, the spectacles resting on a table, the sneakers waiting by a doorway.

Perhaps the most painful challenge of loss is deciding what to do with these physical impressions. The heart insists they are treasures. The mind agrees. Yet the rest of the world, guided by practicality and economics, often labels them as clutter, waste, or forgotten possessions occupying precious space.

Human civilization, however, evolved by refusing to surrender entirely to such practicality. We learned to preserve. I have visited countless museums, monuments, and historical sites across different countries, and beneath their architecture, grandeur, and scholarship lies a simple philosophy: inanimate objects bearing human impressions are treasures.

A museum is, in essence, humanity's declaration that certain memories deserve a physical home. The sword of a warrior, the pen of a statesman, the diary of a traveller, or the toy of a child become valuable not because of their material worth, but because a fragment of human life remains attached to them.

Had we never developed this instinct to preserve, cherish, and revisit such artifacts, we might have remained little more than intelligent animals. Memory preserved in objects is not merely a habit of culture; it is one of the foundations upon which culture itself was built.

Sometimes, our society marks loyalty based on how long people continue to carry certain inanimate objects and symbols. Whether a father's surname is still passed on to his son after the mother's remarriage following the father's death. Whether the photograph of the family's first pet still adorns the central hall while new, bubbly companions once again make the home happier and more vibrant. Whether the relics of one's faith are still preserved in an inter-religious marriage.

Thus, inanimate objects become markers of loyalty. The more such objects are retained and displayed, the more they compel others to believe that loyalty still exists. They become physical evidence that a person, a relationship, or a belief has not been entirely left behind.

I call those who deliberately destroy physical memories either cunning or foolish. For some, throwing away treasured inanimate memories comes very easily. Perhaps they have experienced too many dull moments throughout life, making every object seem disposable. For many others, including myself, life is carried through huge trophies and indelible scars embodied in inanimate objects, making us emotionally fat and meaty.

Particularly, with the weight of the physical memories I carry, I would roughly need gigabytes of acres of home to store them all. Sometimes, I sway between the happiness and sorrow attached to these objects; at other times, happiness and sorrow themselves seem to sway between the objects. They sit quietly around me, holding fragments of my life, waiting for a glance, a touch, or a moment of remembrance to come alive once again.

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Anand