A Leash Is Held at Both Ends

The things we own start making demands.

A house needs repairs. A car needs servicing. A business needs support. A reputation needs defending. A collection needs storing. Even a beautiful garden quickly reveals an administrative character.

Ownership gives control and creates dependence at the same time.

Before acquiring something it helps to count not only the price but the future duties:

• maintenance;
• time;
• storage;
• insurance;
• the inability to move quickly;
• anxiety about losing it;
• the people you now depend on.

This is not an argument against property. Some things expand freedom: tools, housing, a reserve, transport in the right kind of place.

But an object bought for the sake of freedom can take up all the time needed to service it.

The leash really is held at both ends. It is worth knowing at least who is currently taking whom for a walk.

A country house is the most honest example. It is bought for weekends in the fresh air, and two years later the weekends are taken up not by the air but by the roof, the fence, the pump and a conversation with a man who promised to come on Wednesday. You can still rest there, but the window between “we’ve arrived” and “something needs doing” has narrowed to Saturday morning. Formally the owner decides whether to go. In practice, not going for a month means arriving to a longer list.

Property rarely takes freedom away entirely. It takes away the right to do nothing: the thing keeps deteriorating while its owner is busy with something else. The bill for the pause arrives later, but it arrives.