Two songs, and what should remain of us

Unfortunately, there was not much time for finding out this week.

But one question stuck.

I recently talked to Max about what actually remains of us.

The conversation started with old objects, like coins, that still tell us something about how people lived hundreds of years ago.

What is our version of that?

What will someone find from us?

The full conversation comes out this week on the GABWAF podcast.

That question made me think about Heat, which is still one of my favorite movies.

Neil McCauley, played by Robert De Niro, has one line that basically explains his whole life:

Don't let yourself get attached to anything you are not willing to walk out on in 30 seconds flat if you feel the heat around the corner.

To be fair, he does not say it as advice about life.

He says it as a professional criminal, about the work. It is about being able to drop everything and disappear the moment the police get close.

I am taking my own reading from it anyway.

It sounds like a quote about detachment.

Own less. Need less. Stay free.

And I think that is partly true.

But I also think people misunderstand it when they turn it into some minimalist masculinity thing.

The more interesting question is why losing certain things can feel like losing part of ourselves.

A house.

A car.

Money.

Status.

Knowledge.

Reputation.

At some point, what we have starts becoming part of what we think we are.

That is basically the tension Erich Fromm writes about in To Have or to Be?

His argument is not that owning things is bad.

He even distinguishes necessary, functional ownership from a life built around possession.

The problem starts when possession becomes identity. When the answer to “who am I?” increasingly depends on what belongs to me.

And that is where the question of what should remain gets interesting.

Maybe I do not care that much about things remaining simply because they were mine.

But I really admire things that remain because they still do something after their creator or owner is gone.

Two songs come to mind.

Moby, God Moving Over the Face of the Waters

This plays at the end of Heat.

And damn, it works.

The track has always felt like an ending and a beginning at the same time.

It could be an outro.

It could be an intro.

The different instruments keep layering until it almost feels symphonic.

For me, that is one of the strongest examples of something remaining without staying fixed.

Moby made the song.

Michael Mann gave it another context through Heat.

And then I found my own meaning in it.

Clams Casino, I'm God

Then there is I'm God.

I have a lot of admiration for Clams Casino, and also for Imogen Heap, whose voice is sampled in the track.

The opening still gets me every fucking time.

I cannot really place the feeling.

Somewhere between euphoria, sadness, uncertainty and chaos.

I first found the song around the beginning of Covid.

It has followed me through completely different periods since.

But it does not feel nostalgic.

I do not hear it and want to go back.

It still feels like part of the present.

Putting it on feels more like falling back for a second.

Stopping.

Going inward.

And maybe that is what I like about things that remain.

They do not have to preserve their original meaning.

They can outlive it.

Fromm also writes about our desire to extend ourselves through possessions, status, history and legacy. If what I have becomes part of who I am, then something surviving me can almost feel like part of me surviving too.

Maybe that is the wrong reason to preserve something.

I do not really care if one day someone can point at something and say:

Jason owned this.

I would rather they find something that still gives them something.

Something useful because we were.

Further reading

• To Have or to Be?, Erich Fromm, 1976, first published in the World Perspectives series
• Erich Fromm Online, the estate's own archive of his writing
• Just for Now, Imogen Heap, 2005, the source of the sample in I'm God