ABSTRACT
The human individual, fundamentally, comes to merge with the world and belong to it—not to turn into its owner. Ownership does not settle with being. Belonging occurs on the symbolic level: belonging occurs in a certain spatial realm without actually owning it. There must be a transition from a need for ownership—which speaks in a language of violence—to a need to belong to a group and to society. Belonging acknowledges pluralism and is not violent. In times of distress the connection with nature becomes much more powerful. When they are going through hard times, people tend to revert to a state of being. When people are destitute they turn to nature. When they are busier getting and owning things, their liberty is curtailed and they become shackled to the material world. Constant anxiety and harassment, emanating from external reality, corrode internal life and creativity. Thus territorial ownership foregoes the ability to protect mental life.
