“. . . And this point too I feel is
most important: money has in itself, by its own nature, nothing which can
prevent its being carried off from those who possess it, against their will.”
“It has not,” I said.
“No, you cannot deny that any stronger
man may any day snatch it from them. For how come about the quarrels of the law
courts? Is it not because people try to regain money that has been by force or
by fraud taken from them?”
“Yes,” I answered.
“Then,” said she, “a man will need to
seek from the outside help to guard his own money.”
“That cannot be denied,” I said.
“And a man will not need that unless he
possesses money which he can lose.”
“Undoubtedly he will not.”
“Then the argument turns round the
other way,” she said. “The riches which were thought to make a man
all-sufficient for himself, do really put him in need of other people's help.
Then how can need be separated from wealth? Do the rich never feel hunger nor
thirst? Do the limbs of moneyed men never feel the cold of winter?
“You will say, ‘Yes, but the rich have
the wherewithal to satisfy hunger and thirst, and drive away cold.’ But though
riches may thus console wants, they cannot entirely take them away. For, though
these ever crying wants, these continual requests, are satisfied, yet there
must exist that which is to be satisfied. I need not say that nature is satisfied
with little, greed is never satisfied.
“Wherefore, I ask you, if wealth cannot
remove want, and even creates its own wants, what reason is there that you
should think it affords satisfaction to a man?”
—from
Book 3, Prose 3
It isn’t
just that possessing wealth will not get me what I really want, it’s also that
possessing wealth will make me want all the more. He who has much, wants much.
We are
so familiar with the idea that money will provide security and freedom, that we
completely forget how vulnerable and dependent it can really make us. Once I
have something of value, another may decide that he wishes to have it for
himself instead, and once he wishes to have it, I will have to depend on the
protection of yet others to help me keep it.
The
shady robbers with masks and guns can take what they want, of course, but so
can the far more refined brokers, bankers, politicians, or lawyers. Before I
know it, I am paying one fellow to guard me from another fellow, and though I’m
certain it’s a great deal, I can easily find myself spending more and more to
hold on to less and less.
If I
reflect on the situation honestly, I will see that it is actually quite a
pathetic game, and one where it becomes increasingly difficult to tell friend
from foe. Wherever I see a greater benefit, there is also lurking an even
greater risk, and I ask myself if it is natural for something as complete and
satisfying as happiness to have to be so incomplete and unsatisfying.
It comes
to the point where I have to admit that anything outside of my own thoughts and
actions, all my money, property, reputation, and luxuries, and even the freedom
of my very body, are only things I “have” because other people allow them to be
“mine”. I haven’t made the world be at my beck and call at all, and I will find
that I am at the beck and call of the world.
When I
used to attend many Irish music seisiúns around Boston, I remember regularly
seeing a shy and unassuming fellow, a bit older than myself, sitting quietly in
the corner with a single pint, and occasionally playing along on a worn tin
whistle. Most people ignored him, and he always left alone.
The word
got out one day, however, that he had done quite well for himself in the
lottery. He suddenly had new supportive friends surrounding him, and he moved
up to the bar when he bought a round for the whole house. Within a few weeks,
he had a pretty girl on his arm. A month or so later, I saw him proudly showing
off a new Mustang.
And a
year or so later, he was right back where he started, sitting alone, nursing
that one pint, and leaving without anyone talking his ear off, or asking for
anything. I often wondered if having so quickly spent all the money he had won
was maybe the best thing that had ever happened to him.
A social
work graduate student I once spoke to confidently told me that poverty was the
root cause of people being miserable, and she insisted that “only an idiot
would think otherwise.” Now I understood that I could use money to buy things,
but I also understood that buying things wouldn’t necessarily make me any
better or happier. I didn’t have any statistics to cite, but I could only think
that the wealthiest people I happened to know seemed to fight, lie, cheat,
steal, and cry just as much, if not more, than the poorest people I happened to
know.
The
power and self-sufficiency we imagine will often become a weakness and a
reliance. How funny, yet also how ironically suitable, it is that I should have
to beg and pander to others just to brag about my importance and superiority. Possessions
are often such that I don’t have them, but they have me.
Written in 9/2015
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