Re: The War On HLA

From: Beth (BethStone21_at_hotmail.NOSPICEDHAM.com)
Date: 10/27/03 

Date: Mon, 27 Oct 2003 06:33:15 -0000

sinewave wrote:
> > at least with celebrities like actors and musicians, they tend
> > to actually have talent, interests and a life, providing joy
> > and entertainment to others...the unnamed rich serve no pratical
> > purpose whatsoever in society.
>
> is it possible some of these "unnamed rich" actually support the
arts?

Yes; But that's not "talent"...that is, at best, "taste"...

With an actor or musician, it's they who're contributing
_themselves_...the "unnamed rich" contribute money...which would have
a separate existence without them...there's nothing unique about
them...

When you define yourself in terms of what you have financially, then
you merely become the aggregate of the property you possess...as the
tale of King Midas reminds us, be careful of what you wish for, as it
may come true...if you consider "success" to only mean money then that
belief will drive you to only attempt to gain money as that is your
only measure of "success" (and you want to be "successful" so you do
what needs to be done to be a "success")...it's a self-fulfilling
prophecy..."ask and thou shalt receive, knock and it shalt be opened
to you"...you get exactly what you want - money and property...your
definition of "success" - and that is what you become...nothing else
comes with it because you did not define anything else but money as
your objective...and what you've not been seeking out, you don't
get...if there was something like "fun" or "family" or some other
definition of "success" that some else might choose, then you'll walk
right on passed it because you've defined "success" as only money...it
might have been available to you but unless you choose to take it, you
don't possess it...therefore, what you do possess is all that money
because that was your sole objective...you have become what you wanted
to become...

And regards what they've become, it is merely as a entity that
possesses money, which may be handed out to other people in
"support"...but it's not _them_ that they want but only their
money...and, in the case of these artists, it's often not because that
money will make them a "success" but because they can use it to gain
other things which gets them their definition of "success", such as
fame, new materials, a new theatre in which to perform, advertising to
make more people come see their works, etc....in a sense, there's a
very good reason why the "unnamed rich" are, indeed, "unnamed"...who
they are is actually quite irrelevent in this context...they are their
money...that is what they chose to define them...and, as they wished,
that is what _does_ define them...unless they also had the sense to
consider other things besides money as well...

If there is a Heaven then you _can_ take the memory of that excellent
drama or song with you...such "art" becomes a part of the person
experiencing it...money, though, always has a separate, independent
existence to the person owning it...it would be there whether you
owned it or not...

Indeed, as you said, you can't take it with you...it's a separate
entity...you may control money, it may come to define what you are as
a person...but he's a cruel master...because you'll _always_ be a
slave to money...rich and poor alike...it's defining yourself in terms
of something you cannot ever be...money has no worth until it is spent
so you're also defining yourself on something inherently
"fleeting"...you are choosing a measure of "success" that can only go
down when you try to exercise that "success" in your life...

It's not all bad, though...money gives me clothes, it keeps me fed, it
means I can converse with you...money is NOT the problem...it's simply
a measure of credit and debt...the "issue" is the people who try to
define it as something it isn't...and then define themselves in terms
of that thing that it never was, anyway...it isn't "success"...

If in the pursuit of other things, money comes your way...that's
great...you can use it to re-invest in your "art" or make
contributions to friends and other people to help reach their
"success"...money is useless unless it is being _used_ somehow...it's
just a piece of paper with a picture of a dead President and some
strange occult pyramid on it...to be a "millionaire / billionaire"
implicitly means that you're delibrately trying to hold onto the money
instead of what it can provide for you, as even when it's being used,
you're maintaining an "average" that's not moving, not being recycled,
not being spent...that is credit and debt that is being "taken out of
circulation"...it only begins to actually be "useful", indeed, when it
is "invested" to "support" other things, like, say, the arts...

Money, though, doesn't actually have "linear worth"...so, yes, as
Capitalism rightly preaches, you do need to _accumulate_ it in order
for various things to be possible...if you have a million right now in
your pocket, you can immediately go and buy something expensive like a
mansion outright with it (so that you now own it completely...lock,
stock and barrel...you could even sell it and recover the majority of
that "investment" :)...while if that million was, instead, spread over
into small amounts over your entire life, then there's not enough to
buy the mansion...although, it may help to pay for the rent on an
apartment and food and such (if you could add up all the money a
person has during their life as one figure, an awful lot of people
would actually be up in the "millionaire" leagues...just they never
have it all at the same time, where it's actually effectively _worth
more_ in terms of what it can be used for)...which you keep paying and
which you never outrightly own...so, if you leave the apartment at
some point, you can't recover any of the money you spent on the rent
because it's not yours to own...while the landlord who owns your
apartment can perhaps get many times more in rent from you than it
cost for the apartment and still can sell it for slightly less or
slightly more than the cost they paid to buy it (depending on the
state of the housing market at the time and so on and so forth :) in
the first place and recover that money again...or even make a
profit...

Thus, money doesn't have "linear worth" and, yup, Capitalism is right
about effectively "creating wealth" out of thin air because of
this...and, yup, that you need accumulations of money in order for
many things to be possible...therefore, there will and should be rich
people...there's absolutely no problems there whatsoever...

The issue is people who define themselves and reality solely in
respect of money...who believe it's a synonym for "success"...those
who sacrifice other things for gaining it...those who destroy other
people's attempts to do well and get on in life because they want
others to have less money because of the "relative non-linear value"
that money has...those who spend their entire lives missing everything
else, not seeing that their "objective" is actually permanently
unachievable...constantly paranoid of losing their "success" because
it can be stolen...because it keeps on going down as you spend it -
like I say, it's a measure that actually reduces as it is
exercised...creating for the "money defines me" people, the conundrum
that the better they do and the more luxurious their lifestyle, the
more they seem to feel that they are losing their grip on their
"success" - unlike other measures, which often are permanent - you can
even take them with you - and possibily even naturally
increasing...and in their paranoid fear of becoming a "loser" as they
see their money flowing away, they very, very often start getting
confrontational with everyone..."look, a poor person! He's going to
break into my house and steal my money! Quick, put up a fence! Shoot
him before he even tries! Install a missile defence system! Put all
the poor people into a camp away from us! Don't let them ever
accumulate enough to break out! The government wants taxes, down with
the government! Kill the government!!"...

This is slightly inevitable, though, when you define yourself and your
"success" in terms of property and wealth that can, yup, easily
disappear, easily be all spent, easily be stolen, which a government
may tax heavily, etc....you've defined a reality in which, in fact,
you've gone and stacked the odds _against_ yourself...Bill Gates has
billions but he still seeks out billions more by hook or by
crook...there is no limit...and, yes, on the record, he's talked about
how he thinks it could all just "vanish" one day...well, yes, it's
conceivable, that's true...because that is the nature of the things he
defines himself in terms of...they are fleeting things that only have
worth when you give it away (and unlike something like "talent", when
it is given away, you _lose_ it...it goes...the money is now in
someone else's hands, who, ironically, has exactly the same issues now
:)...this is the permanent paranoia you set yourself up to live
through...you are, in effect, defining that you can never truly be a
"success" if you define "success" in terms of money...someone
somewhere has more than you...and, even in the case of Big Bill when
no individual did have more than him, he still wasn't free of the
paranoia...he still had to have more...he still didn't feel "complete"
and probably NEVER WILL while he sees the world that way...

You will not believe me, of course...why on Earth should you? But this
is "fool's gold"...an objective that can never be reached...a paranoia
that never disappears...you can, almost by definition, never be a
"success" to yourself while you define things this way...

I like the way Ozzie Osbourne put it (paraphrased...the original, no
doubt, was full of needless swearing, if I recall ;)..."oh, it's NOT
about money...it's about what money _CAN GET FOR YOU_...I don't want
money, I want the swimming pool so I can go swimming when I like...I
don't want money, I want to be able to walk on stage in front of
thousands of people and get that 'buzz'...it's not about money, it's
about what that money can give you when you use it...more money means
_more opportunities_..._more freedom to choose_...the ability to tell
people to eff off when you feel like it...people who suck up to you
telling you you're brilliant....that's what money's for"...well,
_exactly_...the "success" isn't the money but what opportunities and
freedoms it can give you to do "successful" things...

Money is NOT a problem...as always, it's people...people who are not
quite getting the gist of what the sort of thing actually is all
about...

I repeat, the enemy is not "outside"...the enemy is always
_within_...people harm you because you _let_ them do so...when you are
not "successful", it's only because you refuse to accept what you
already have as the miracle it, no doubt, inevitably is...hey, we're
all in the same boat...I'm an incredibly harsh critic of
myself...absolutely nothing is good enough for me, even when it
clearly should be by everyone else's standards...in a sense, this is
how I begin to understand the problem because I have exactly the same
sort of problem from being indecisive about what I want and never
being satisfied with anything I do get, anyway...inevitably, if I keep
that up, I'll die thinking myself a "failure", no matter what I may
achieve and what other people think about it...I'll probably die being
pissed off with myself, as usual, and that's so stupidly daft...but
the exact same thing is also stupidly silly, if you end up in the same
position because you defined "success" in terms of having more than
anyone else...odds are firmly stacked against you, whoever you are,
that you'll fail that task...only one person can be "richest"...and,
as we can see from the "richest", they still aren't satisfied and keep
on and on at their obsession...just like I do with mine...we're doomed
to failure like this...and it's utterly stupid to just wander around
where nothing is good enough and not appreciating things as they pass,
convinced there's better elsewhere...

"What is life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.
No time to stand beneath the boughs
And stare as long as sheep or cows.
No time to see, when woods we pass,
Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass.
No time to see, in broad daylight,
Streams full of stars, like skies at night.
No time to turn at Beauty's glance,
And watch her feet, how they can dance.
No time to wait till her mouth can
Enrich that smile her eyes began.
A poor life this if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare."

[ "Leisure", by William Henry Davies...a double-edged poem...it's all
in those commas and the "sub-ordinate clause" in the first line...a
masterful example of the massive difference in semantics that
punctuation makes...many reading out the poem's first line tend to
read: "what is life if full of care?; We _have no time_ to stand and
stare"...and they totally miss what the rest of the poem is actually
saying, which is the complete opposite...an example of why punctuation
is often very important indeed ;) ]

Beth :)

Quantcast