Inspiration & Paradox 5: Feelings for an Object?

That day a colleague was sharing about how much he felt for his old car when it was being driven away by the buyer. I could immediately identify with him. It was the same overwhelming sense of loss when Jaz and I sold our first car in 2001. It then surprised me that how much humans can actually attach our emotions and passions to objects and material things. Following is what I wrote then about the car that then:

Strange it may seem and sound
But I did feel sad to see it being driven away
It has neither soul nor spirit, yet it is able to disturb emotions
I see and feel it everyday, I miss it now
Even more so when Jaz says, it has served us well
I know it doesn’t and cannot feel bad, but I do
Strange what things can do to the human heart
I suppose, some non-living can mean to people as much as,
and sometimes, even more than the living.

I will not call this as being materialistic because it is obviously not. It is more like a sentimental thing, you have owned and used the car for a while and when you part with it, the sadness may not be any lesser than what you would feel if it was a human relationship. But what seems to disturb me a little is the irony that the non-living sometimes can mean even so much more than the living to us. Scary, isn’t it.