Fortune

Most good fortune in human lives is taken for granted. Understanding this comes with experience and age.

 

A strong and healthy body is amazing good fortune. A brain which functions well and learns readily is also amazing good fortune.

 

Much attention in the medically driven societies of the developed world is given to pathology and dysfunction. There is profit in disease and addiction. There is profit in brain malfunctions which display as mental illness. The bearers of genetic deficits, disease or addiction suffer greatly. Treating them, while motivated by admirable human emotions, yield profits for corporations which build less beneficent aristocracies.

 

Part of a healthy life is practicing the assessment and application of physical and mental strengths to compensate for vulnerabilities or weaknesses. Meditation is very helpful in this process. Quiet time for more active reflection is also beneficial. For some, a therapist is an invaluable ally in opening the treasure trove of their good fortune of birth.

 

There has been a rather schizoid split in the public consciousness concerning good fortune in life here in the U.S.. The current politically correct cult of Inclusion or Normalization tends to discourage the individual from skeptically looking at his/her particular fortunes of birth in contrast to others. At the same time, the upper ten percent of the population is actively accumulating inordinate wealth for themselves at the expense of social equity in society. This cult of Exclusion materializes in the form of gated communities and the luxury inner cities around the world where international economic aristocrats gather and indulge themselves.

 

True good fortune in life has nothing to do with money. It is highly individual. Discovering the good fortune in my own body and brain has taken me many years. In fact, some of that good fortune had ebbed away with neurosis, physical disease and age before I realized I had possessed it. Now I take time every day to assess and apply the good fortune in my life. This is a great support to my humanist practice of mindfulness and compassion.