Money, money, money: Does it make the world go round?

"It is not the man who has too little that is poor, but the man who craves more."

~ Lucius Annaeus Seneca, better known as Seneca the Younger, a Roman Stoic philosopher, Statesman, Dramatist, of the Silver Age of Latin literature.

Lucius Annaeus Seneca was tutor and later advisor to Emperor Nero. Well, if Nero played the fiddle, while Rome was burning; perhaps, Seneca had taught him well. After all, what is money or wealth which money connotes - even that extravagant wealth of ancient Rome - in comparison to the unlimited wealth of knowledge? In addition, from time before present times, the belief was that all kings were mostly rapscallions; and so, Nero was possibly making a point disproving such belief when he chose not to fiddle with the fire of Rome, and let it burn instead while fiddling with his fiddle. The philosopher in Seneca would have known that money, wealth, or possessions, is but a mistress who is never loyal to one master. Money and women may be the most sought after; yet, they remain the least known about. Their loyalty too is as frail, fickle, and flighty, as fortune.

Difference

Further, what difference does it make as to how much one has or owns; when what one does not possess amounts to much more than all what one could ever acquire, hold, and keep in this world.

That man is richest, whose pleasures are simple; may be why Nero might have thought it fit and best to stand against the assault by fire on Rome, and thought it best to let Rome burn; thus following the maxim that man is rich in proportion to the things he can afford to let alone.

If a man runs after money, he is money-mad; if he keeps it, he is a capitalist; if he spends it, he is a playboy; if he does not get it, he is a never-do-well; if he does not try to get it, he lacks ambition.

If he gets it without working for it, he is a parasite; and if he accumulates it after a lifetime of hard work, people call him a fool who never got anything out of life.

Money may be power, freedom, a cushion against the unexpected, the root of all evils, sum of all blessings; but it is also worth remembering that empty pockets never held anyone back.

Only empty heads and empty hearts can do that. Wealth as such is not evil. It is how one acquire and use it that determines if it is or not evil.

Wealth

Wealth in some form or other will always be, needed; but the wrong use of it is the folly of fools.

There is nothing in its nature to produce happiness. The fact is that until we learn to be happy with ourselves, we will never be happy with what we have. Happiness is not in the mere possession of money. It lies in the joy of achievement, in the thrill of creative effort; because, the wellness of happiness is always, conceived, created, and enjoyed in the mind than by the possession of possessions, be it as money or in any other form.

Money may make people think it makes the world go round, and may be the major marker and maker of status in the modern world. However, it can buy a house, but not a home. It can buy a clock, but not time. It can buy position, but not respect.

It can buy a bed, but not sleep. It can buy a book, but not knowledge. It can buy medicine, but not health.

It can buy blood, but not life. Hence, it is not everything; and it often causes pain and suffering, even if it does make the world go round. In fact, new research suggests that more money makes people act less human, or at least less humane.

If getting or having money can make you hard-hearted; does it also mean that, one has to be hard-hearted to become rich? The bulk of the new research points decisively in the direction of the former.

It also indicates that people higher up on the socioeconomic ladder, translated as wealthy, are about three times more likely to cheat than, people on the lower rungs of society. It seems that just the idea of holding and hording money can make people selfish, and make them have a high tolerance for inequality. Philosophers and writers going back at least to Aristotle have had something to say about the potentially corrupting influence of wealth.

Encounter

Jesus warned that one might more easily push a camel through the eye of a needle than encounter a rich man in Heaven, and Dante designed the fourth ring of his Inferno for the greedy.

Scrooge in Charles Dickens's Christmas Carol; Lily Bart, a character in The House of Mirth; and Sherman McCoy, the central character of the novel The Bonfire of the Vanities, are guides to the hell of living too much in money's thrall. However, science looks for solutions and though affluence is widely held to be a potential hazard to the soul, it remains unproven scientifically, or empirically, in spite of the research on the subject.

Money has a million symbolic meanings and reflects as many human yearnings.

Wanting it, getting it, having it, using it, and abusing it have entirely different impulses with entirely different effects on personality, behaviour, and interpersonal relationships.

Too many people spend money they earned, to buy things they do not want, to impress people that they do not like.

I see no reason in such behaviour, other than to satiate one's ego.

No single researcher has yet captured all of the nuances of how money affects behavioral patterns.

Yet, social scientists are beginning to prove just how determinative money is when it comes to determining such matters as class, status, and behaviour. For a long time, primatologists have known that chimpanzees will act out social dominance, with a special ferociousness, with actions of slapping hands, stamping feet, or charging back and forth and dragging huge branches.

Symbols

If you watch carefully, most of our politicians do all of these things except dragging branches instead of which they brag and go about with blaring symbols. Sociologists and anthropologists have explored the effects of hierarchy in tribes and groups; but psychology has only recently begun seriously investigating how having money, or not having it, -affects psychosocial behaviour in the species Homo sapiens.

I have noticed the different behavioural patterns between the have and have not. The rich keep and feed one dog, while the rich of heart feed four or more that stray on streets.

The former have swimming pools that cover half their garden, whereas the latter have creaks and streams without end to swim in.

The haves have imported lanterns to decorate and light up their gardens, and the have not have the moon, the stars, and distant galaxies to light up their night. The privileged possess large land to live on, whereas the under-privileged have fields and vistas that go beyond sight.

The living space and patio of the rich reaches to their front yard, while the open un-built spaces of the poor reach the horizon, for earth itself is their home.

The former have walls around their property to protect them, the latter have friends and relations. The rich have servants who serve them; the poor serve others.

The rich buy their food; the poor farmers grow theirs. When I see these differences, I wonder as to who is the poorer, whose life is more blessed.

Too often, we forget what we have and concentrate on what we do not have. What is one person's worthless object is another's prized possession.

Thus, everything is based on one's perspective. Makes me wonder how blessed and wonderful the world would be, if all of us gave thanks for all that we possess, all the bounty we have, instead of worrying about wanting more.

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