The Agony of Wealth
If anyone perceives happiness to be gained via pursing wealth as the highest priority in life, well----they ought to read the book titled 740 Park. This is a condominium building in New York City considered the world's richest apartment building. If you live there you have attained the perfect statement as to your wealth status. It been the richest apartment building for 75 years and the author traces the lives of those who have lived there since it's conception.
Wealth and happiness have always been tied together as if the latter follows from the former. The most recent studies indicate this is true, at least in America, up until around $75,000 per year income. After that the relationship is lost. What is gained is once again a reminder that, as with most things, enough is as good as a feast. Where God's evolutionary process is taking life on this planet is beyond human comprehension. It is necessary, for proper perspective, to understand human limitations. The human species not likely, it is best to remind ourselves, the end point of this evolutionary process. There is no reason, based on any logic, that we are made in God's image, that we are even a favorite or 'special' species, and any life after death seems useless speculation. After all, we can't even comprehend the existence of life on this planet let alone any life after life on the planet. Whether it be God or whatever came first, something had to have come from nothing. So clearly even our concept of nothing is flawed. And so it goes, with so much beyond human mental capabilities at this point in time. It would be presumptuous for us to even postulate that the human species is the end point in evolution. We need to accept that WE GO, TIME STAYS.
Of course in the meantime we are left to muddle through, as best we can, how to make our lives as contented as possible. Just amassing wealth is clearly an illusion as a path to happiness. Does that mean no wealthy people are happy? Not any more than there are no poor people who are happy. First of all, the zippidy doo dah stuff is relative. Humans are diverse enough via genetics and environment that any mixture of variables to generate happiness is going to vary. It might, I suppose, be true, that if I could be an accomplished and famous athlete, this would make me happy. BUT, there are many accomplished and famous athletes who are not happy. And so we can go down an endless list of things which might produce some happiness but it is always some sort of MIGHT. And furthermore, I might best remember that no amount of effort or training is going to make ME an accomplished and famous athlete. Accepting what cannot be changed is part of happiness.
For this musing, wealth is the variable under scrutiny. The people who lived, or now live, in 740 Park are wealthy. The end point has been reached. Some simply inherited a lot of wealth, and some started from scratch. No matter, if one likes stress, divorce, family discord, anger, distrust, materialism, jealousy, envy, surface glitter, isolation, and compulsive disorders, then wealth, as the priority in life, is perfect. You will invariably have it up to your neck and then painfully, but too late, die an emotionally painful and lonely death just like most people do. Outside of sudden death, most people die alone---dying is very much an internal personal sort of journey.
It clearly is hard to have genuine positive meaningful relationships when money is at stake. Image over substance, materialism over contentedness, and compulsive disdain for others along the way is almost unavoidable. What is nice about the pursuit of wealth, I guess, is that your progress is quantitatively measurable, just like growing bigger as a child.
Of course, one usually needs a certain amount of wealth to be contented or happy. We probably have more people today on our planet than ever before who have literally no wealth to speak of. They own no land, they have no job, they have no health care, they have no physical security, they have little food, clean water, etc. This of course is matched by those who have every imaginable kind of wealth. It is the best of all possible worlds, it is the worst of all possible worlds. And most people are somewhere in between. Unfortunately, the reality is that no longer are there enough natural resources on our planet to enable everyone to live the kind of affluent life many of us live. That is human overpopulation. To deny this observation is simply delusion writ large.
Life is full of delusions. That wealth can bring contentedness is one of them. 740 Park demonstrates this. Fairness is another delusion. Genetics and environment create a playing field that is not level. Neither of these two factors did anyone EARN. "I earned it" is always to some degree delusional. We are mostly fortunate. Evolution is less about earning anything and more about chance, diversity, and survival of the fittest. IF God wished a perfect planet he would have created a perfect planet. Perhaps for God to achieve a perfect planet the evolutionary process of chance, diversity, and survival of the fittest is needed. For evolution to be GOOD writ large does not mean necessarily that any of us as individuals are any end point by any measure of fairness, ability, or happiness. For God to be individually involved in any of our lives would be contrary to His own laws of evolution. Does he ever get involved? Well, there is certainly no evidence that he does very often or with any degree of consistency. That God helps those who inherit particular religious dogma is quite a stretch. Whatever God is, I just can't reduce Him to this level of irrationality. There is far too much of "there but for the grace of God goes I". When a particular sperm meets a particular egg, this is not likely a planned event by God, but exactly the kind of chance that drives God's evolutionary process. Self serving ego is what drives humans to create sectarian religious dogma, and the more self centered one is, the more fundamentalist of some sort one becomes. Anything then done in the name of God becomes, by default, a trip to Heaven of some sort. And mercy be to those whose sectarian religious dogma does not match a majority. Get out the body bags. Onward religious soldiers.
But all that be as it may, back to wealth as the road to contentment. We have almost a childlike conception of wealth---- that wealth means we lounge around in luxury, with every want at our command, waddling in materialistic comforts, traveling to exotic places, hob nobbing with important people. It is nothing like that. I was a live-in chauffeur many years ago, and later professionally had the good or bad luck to often be in the company of people with wealth. To get or stay wealthy money has to be a priority in your life---there are precious few exceptions to this. This priority requires extraordinary effort and stress. The stakes are always high, the risks nerve wracking, and time ever precious. But of course one has servants or hired help if you prefer that word. Sure, but they need training, supervision, and too often will be caught dipping their hand to help themselves for some sort of your treasures, minor or major. All friendships become suspect---almost everyone would like to be close to someone of real wealth. Your wealth gives your access to beauty and sex with the sexy, access to charming people, and romantic environments. But when the charm wears off, there is always something new on the horizon. And alas, your spouse is well aware if they tire of you, a good portion of your wealth goes out the door with them. Leisure time is precious, scheduled as can best be fitted in with all your other responsibilities. Economic empires require a lot of maintenance and protection. Wealthy people spend a lot of time trying to prevent others from taking advantage of them. With anything desired available on demand most any moment, compulsive behavior of some sort inevitably sets in. It could be sex, drugs, more money, power, publicity, eating, drinking----whatever, compulsive behavior of some sort will almost surely come. Many wealthy people end up walling themselves off from most others, seek seclusion of some sort, spend an inordinate amount of time dealing with issues regarding children from a different marriage, some get convictions for improper business dealings, lawsuits involving business or personal affairs are common, and after a while, a wealthy person invariably feels cheated---real contentment with life is evasive. There are exceptions but I don't think that many.
What I noticed most about most wealthy people is just how boring they really are. Conversations are stilted, cautious, strained with attempted witticisms, and time in their presence seems to go so slowly. There is little relaxing in any gathering with the economically or socially elite. It is almost all show, each person absorbed with their own performance---real interaction is virtually nonexistent. To me, it was always a total waste of my time, an inconvenience, like a role in a play---acting, image projecting, hah hah witticisms, and most of the time 'something' is at stake for the gathering---- and whatever that something is, there will be winners and losers. Much of it has to do with reputation, this misdirected belief that others view you as something other than an object of some sort in a chess game. If 'get a life' has it's intended meaning than the wealthy need get one. Reality and genuineness is mostly missing.
If life is a soap opera, then the lives of the wealthy are full of life----tormented actors chasing anything that glitters. If wealth were really some kind of heaven on earth then why, among the wealthy, are the percentages of suicides, divorces, law suits, criminal convictions, drug use, family battles, loneliness, gambling problems, sex compulsions, mental disorders, etc. so high compared to the non wealthy? When most of us think of wealth we rarely think of all these companions to wealth.
I would like to tour 740 Park. I enjoyed reading about the tormented lives of so many who have lived there. Frankly, I think one of my biggest blessings is my father making clear after 18 yrs of age I was on my own. Period. My living standard progressed from a dorm room, a rented room in people's homes, a room in a mansion as a live in chauffeur, a rented apartment, a rented home, a owned home, and then a owned condo. To further my 'life education' I lived in rural areas, urban areas, and suburban areas. As a former high school and university teacher I have come in contact with about every sort of personality and every kind of ethnic background/culture. Learning to appreciate diversity, developing a sense of compassion for the less fortunate, and the chance to experience every economic status from being relatively poor to relatively affluent has been, in my own mind, a healthy rewarding progression. Having seen and lived life from so many sides has given me a more philosophical and more accepting perception of life. Such a perception contributes more to my own personal contentment than any other aspect of my life. Life is not purposeless at all, God's evolutionary process and the laws that drive it, go on quite nicely. I suppose it would be even better if the purpose of life revolved more around me personally, or at least those of similar ilk, but it does not. God's evolutionary process is filled with endless personal and national tragedies AND, even more so, with endless personal and national triumphs. The notion that God is toying with us on a personal basis, judging us by our inherited religious dogma and rituals seems rather farfetched to me. The dice have rolled my way often enough, so I feel a real sense of gratitude for the good luck and have learned to accept the Golden Rule as the inherent basis of all ethics. Contentment, the kind that is not fleeting, comes from accepting that the less fortunate count as much as the more fortunate. Thus, for every penny spent on one's own needs past the basics, another penny must be contributed to the less fortunate. The inherent nature of human ethics (the Golden Rule) is such that real contentment follows from duty done. Contentment is, after all is said and done, the reward right here and now for performed ethical duty. Ethics is relatively new in species characteristics and can be expected to become more entrenched and polished over evolutionary time. Even in the short evolutionary period of human life, progress in ethical standards and behavior have improved. Not in any straight steady graph, but in fits and spurts. Gone (in varying degrees) are the religious Inquisitions, witchcraft, slavery (now being reintroduced in a new form), child labor, and progress with women's rights, ethnic rights, legal rights, and we witness now progress with gay rights, protection of natural resources, etc. The biggest failure right now is total inability to engage in responsible reproduction. This failure could lead to one of evolution's cataclysmic upheavals . But no matter, with every evolutionary corrective upheaval eventually comes progress. So one way or the other, planetary progress will come---eventually. For now, as individuals, we all have been dealt our cards, we play them the best we can and if we respect diversity, count others as important as ourselves, then contentment will follow, like day follows night. Of course ME FIRST, others should follow.
