Dearest Fellow Insomniacs,
The hollow eyes of my alarm clock inform me it is (once again) 3:00 in the morning. My insomnia comes and goes, and while most nights I am able to sleep from about 2am to 7am, with a one hour nap embedded somewhere in the day, other nights just won’t allow it. It could be a cumbersome trait inherited from my mother, who also has bouts of sleeplessness from time to time. My unpredictable ailment, however, does offer me a chance to produce yet another blog which creating may perhaps have the same effect on me that it has on those who read it: sleepiness. Ahh, the joys of self-deprecation.
Social stratification is one of the cultural concepts we explore in anthropology, and Friday we learned an interesting statistics. As it turns out, the bottom 40% of the nations population accounts for ONLY two tenths of 1% of the nations wealth. This is staggering, in fact impossible to comprehend for me.
Professor McGee in Cultural Anthropology showed us a list of expenditures for a very wealthy man who was inclined to making frivolous purchases. The list, and I am not exaggerating these figures, went something like this:
Toilet Seat: $5,000
Notebook: $1,500
Shower Curtain: $8,000
Wife’s Birthday Party: $800,000
You get the idea. So the question becomes “How do you justify this type of lifestyle?” The majority of individuals who are billionaires typically inherit their monetary superiority and are called “old money.” If that is the case then it is safe to say that they do not know how to live life any differently. But even those who make the money, working from the bottom up, spend their money in some way or another, and usually on themselves. People like Bill Gates who are considered to be wonderful philanthropists are revered but if you think of his donations in relative terms, it is comparable to you donating $100. Not to take away from the sincerity of his generosity-I’m certain it does tremendous good (I mean that-no sarcasm here).
OK, so we get the idea of this superfluous and ridiculous lifestyle that the wealthy sometimes lead, and the choices they make regarding how to spend their money is a little confusing and perhaps frustrating. Now consider 3rd and 4th world countries and how they view our upper middle class lifestyle. How could we ever justify to a young girl in Sudan who gets a cup of water a day why we take a ten minute shower, and leave the water running while we brush our teeth? Or how can we explain to a man who makes three dollars for a weeks work mining coal how we can buy a five dollar latte at Starbucks, only to drink half and throw the rest out? As Ben Harper said, “Welcome to the cruel world.”
This is in no way complaining… I am thankful every second of every day for all that I have and never let it slip my mind that I have done nothing to deserve the majority of it.
I was thinking the other day how enticing the idea of reincarnation is. What better way to answer the haunting, inexorable question: “What have I done to deserve this life I was born into?” It’s a gratifying justification of a very unpleasing question/thought. Personally, I feel that people are created far from equal in terms of what they are given at birth and what opportunities that particular set of circumstances will yield or affords them. The fortune that I have had in my life is in large part due to my parents who are the two most amazing people I have ever known. I have nothing but respect, admiration, and overwhelming reverence for them both and everything I have and achieve will be because of them. But I did absolutely, positively, NOTHING to earn that blessing. Why don’t I have an alcoholic father who beat me as a child and a mother who insulted me everyday until I was ten? It is simply not fair. And my friends? What did I ever do to meet some of the most amazing people here at Texas State? People I truly admire and look up to? I suppose I did have to look for good people for a few weeks when I got here but some people look for friends like these their whole lives…
The only possible relief from this burdensome and existential concern is to do my absolute best in everything I attempt and try to justify and make the most of what I have so unrightfully been given, but sometimes I fear I don’t even do that. There are millions in the world who would kill to be in my shoes but I still don’t do my very best and give back to those who are not nearly as fortunate. My selfishness seems inescapable. SO, if I only believed in reincarnation things would be simpler, although then I’d have to worry about the next life, in which I’d surely end up a toad.
So until next time, I shall remain, undeservingly,
MW RICE (from the blog)
Random Quote for the Day:
In murderous times, such as these,
The heart breaks and breaks,
And lives by breaking
-Stanley Kunitz, The Testing Tree
No comments:
Post a Comment