数年前、家を引っ越した。50年住み慣れた小さな家だったが、いざ引っ越しとなると、使っていない道具がごろごろ出てきて、あらためてものの多さにびっくりした。道具にしろ、本にしろずいぶん多量に所有していて、これを使いこなし（注1）、読みつくす（注2）には多量の時間がかかる。あと何年生きられるだろうと人生を逆算してみて、①この物量はムダだなぁと引っ越しのトラックの助手席で考えた。
私は世間の人よりはものの所有欲が強いとは思っていない。むしろものをもたないほうと思っているが、それでもものが多過ぎるのである。
昔、「預かりものの思想」と言った人がいる。人はぽつんと生まれて、ぷつんと消えていく。家や土地、道具にしても、いくら自分の所有だと力んでみても、死んでしまえばもっていけない。いずれは世の中に返していかなければならない。このわずかな人生の時間の中で、②それを楽しむしかないのだ。空気や水と同じように、土地も家も道具も、あらゆる諸物は世の中から預かって、生きている間だけ借りているのだ、という考えだった。
たしかに、私たちはものへの所有欲が強い。車をもつ、家をもつ、高級ブランド品をもつ、携帯電話をもつ、コンピューターをもつ、所有することで満足感を得ている。しかし、所有欲をふくらませるには、どこかで限界があるだろう。「預かりものの思想」は、そういう物欲にかられる（注3）私たちに冷水をかける思想だった。
（野外活動研究会『目からウロコの日常物観察ーー無用物から転用物まで』による）
（注1）使いこなし：ここでは、すべて使う
（注2）読みつくす：すべて読む
（注3）物欲にかられる：物欲を抑えられなくなる
AI translation, cross-checked between two models.
A few years ago, I moved house. It was a small house I had been accustomed to living in for fifty years, but when the time actually came to move, unused belongings appeared one after another, making me realize with surprise all over again just how many things I owned. Whether tools or books, I owned a great quantity of them, and it would take an enormous amount of time to make full use of all the tools and read all the books.（注1）（注2） I worked backward from how many more years I might have left to live and, sitting in the passenger seat of the moving truck, thought, “This amount of stuff is really wasteful.”
I do not think my desire to own things is stronger than that of most people. If anything, I consider myself someone who owns relatively few things, and yet even I have too many.
Long ago, someone spoke of an idea called the “philosophy of things entrusted to us.” A person is born alone and eventually disappears from this world. Whether houses, land, or belongings, no matter how insistently we claim that they are ours, we cannot take them with us when we die. Sooner or later, we have to return them to the world. During the brief span of our lives, all we can do is enjoy them. The idea was that, just like air and water, land, houses, belongings, and everything else are entrusted to us by the world and merely borrowed for the duration of our lives.
It is certainly true that our desire to own things is strong. We own cars, houses, luxury-brand goods, mobile phones, and computers, and we gain a sense of satisfaction from possessing them. However, there must be some limit to how far we can keep expanding our desire for possessions. The “philosophy of things entrusted to us” was an idea that threw cold water on those of us driven by material desire.（注3）
(From the Outdoor Activities Research Group, “Eye-Opening Observations of Everyday Objects — From Useless Things to Repurposed Things”)
(Note 1) 使いこなし: here, to use everything fully
(Note 2) 読みつくす: to read everything
(Note 3) 物欲にかられる: to become unable to control one’s desire for material possessions
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