The Having Trap

Picture this: you've just bought a stereo amplifier that goes all the way up to 11. It's louder than anything you've ever owned, it sounds incredible, and for about a week, you're absolutely chuffed with it. But then something strange happens. You start thinking about amplifiers that go to 12. Suddenly, your perfectly good amp that goes to 11 feels... inadequate somehow.

This isn't just about amplifiers. It's about our seemingly endless capacity to be dissatisfied with what we have, always reaching for the next thing, the next level, the next upgrade. There's a difference between being rich and being richer, between being fit and being fitter, and for many of us, that difference becomes a chasm we can never quite bridge.

Erich Fromm, the German-American psychoanalyst and philosopher, became convinced that something fundamental had gone wrong with how we approach existence itself. In his 1976 book, To Have or To Be, he asked, "If I am what I have and if what I have is lost, who then am I?" he was pointing to something genuinely terrifying about how we've learned to see ourselves.

Think about how you introduce yourself. You probably don't say "I'm curious about how things work." You say, "I'm a marketing manager" or "I drive a BMW." We've become so accustomed to defining ourselves through what we possess that we've forgotten there might be another way.

Fromm distinguished between the "having mode" and the "being mode" of existence. In having mode, we're constantly accumulating – money, achievements, experiences, followers. We measure our lives by possessions and accomplishments, always wanting more, never satisfied, perpetually deferring happiness to the next acquisition. It's wanting an amplifier that goes one number higher than whatever you currently own.

But here's what's insidious about having mode: it fundamentally changes how we relate to everything around us. Other people become objects to be possessed or competed with. Knowledge becomes something to accumulate rather than integrate. Even our emotions get treated like commodities – we "have" feelings rather than experiencing them.

Drawing on Marx's insights, Fromm argued that consumer capitalism actively encourages this having orientation. We're surrounded by messages telling us we are what we buy, that happiness comes from the next purchase. The entire machinery of advertising depends on keeping us perpetually dissatisfied, always promising fulfilment is just one purchase away.

This creates what Marx called (and Fromm expanded) "alienation" – we become strangers to our own lives. We relate to the world primarily through what we own rather than through direct experience. The executive who defines themselves by their job title loses touch with wonder. The person measuring their worth by social media metrics stops experiencing authentic friendship.

The being mode operates on different principles. Here, we relate to the world through direct experience and genuine connection. Instead of trying to possess our experiences, we allow ourselves to be present to them. Instead of accumulating knowledge like trophies, we let understanding transform us.

Consider reading a poem in having mode versus being mode. In having mode, you read to "get" the meaning, to add it to your cultural knowledge store. You treat the poem like information to be filed away. In being mode, you allow the poem to affect you, to change how you see or feel. You don't possess the poem – you let it possess you.

This distinction appears everywhere once you start looking. You can have a garden or be a gardener. You can have knowledge or be a learner. The difference isn't semantic – it's about treating life as a collection of possessions versus an ongoing process of discovery.

Here's what makes Fromm's analysis particularly relevant: the having mode, while promising security and satisfaction, delivers the opposite. Because there's always something more to have, someone richer to envy, some new level to reach, having mode keeps us chronically dissatisfied. We become hamsters on a wheel, running faster but never getting anywhere.

The person with the amplifier that goes to 11 will inevitably want one that goes to 12, not because there's anything wrong with their amp, but because having mode consciousness is structurally incapable of lasting satisfaction. It's designed to generate desire, not fulfil it.

Fromm wasn't advocating poverty or renunciation. He was pointing to something subtler: engaging with wants and goals from a different consciousness entirely. You can work toward a promotion while being present to the work itself. You can save money while finding meaning in the saving rather than just in what you'll buy.

Living in being mode doesn't mean becoming passive. If anything, it makes us more effective because we're not constantly fighting ourselves or trying to fill an unfillable void. When we're present to what we're doing rather than fixated on what we might get, we often do it better. When we're genuinely curious about people rather than trying to impress them, we connect more deeply.

The tragedy, according to Fromm, is that we've become so habituated to having mode that we've forgotten being mode is possible. We've been running on the hamster wheel so long we think the wheel is all there is. We've been so focused on getting to 12 that we've forgotten how to hear the music the amplifier plays.

But the good news is that being mode is always available. It's not something to achieve or acquire. It's something we can choose, moment by moment, in how we relate to whatever's happening right now. The question isn't whether we can escape having mode entirely – we probably can't in our consumer culture. The question is whether we can recognise when we're stuck in it and gently redirect toward a more alive way of being.

The amplifier that goes to 11 is already loud enough. The question is: are we ready to stop thinking about 12 long enough to actually listen to what's playing?