WHAT IS WEALTH?

"Wealth" has become a standard term in media and on line. The word's roots in English extend back in time to mean "good fortune", "well being", "happiness". Today the word connotes financial prosperity beyond comfort to luxury and self-sufficiency. This reflects these materialistic times of capitalism's sifting the predators from the sheep. 

I was folding warm clean clothes just now, fresh from my own basement dryer. I realized I felt wealthy and grateful for it. That feeling was deep and profound. I am old enough and worldly enough to have been working-poor and to have seen poorer lives than my own right here in U.S.A., as well as abroad.

Confusing wealth with luxury is an unfortunate habit. I was lucky enough to have had a paternal grandmother who was raised in luxury. She gave it all up as a young woman to elope with a traveling salesman, my grandfather. My grandmother understood that she had traded a certain level of material luxury for a much greater wealth of passion, affection and adventure with a soul mate. She was banned from ever returning to her parents' Victorian mansion, staffed by maids and butlers. Instead she chose to ride the American prairies in a steam-powered touring car beside her husband at a time when The West was still no place for a lady.

That lucky legacy of my birth is a large part of my wealth. The luck of birth, genetic and socioeconomic, is probably the cornerstone of all wealth throughout a lifetime. Without a leg up from previous generations, much of a lifetime is spent reinventing the wheel and struggling to catch up with those who are born better off. The way the world works ensures that those born well rule. Simple fact of history across cultures and nations.

The cornerstone of birthright alone does not sustain a lifetime of wealth. I have known my share of unwell/miserable rich people. Education, paired with emotional investment by intelligent and happy caregivers, when matched with good nutrition and ample exercise, is the next great key to personal wealth. The wealthy body and mind are capable of maintaining a life in health and well being. The truly wealthy child can refuse to be dragged along by peer bullying, religion or political ideology. That child follows a guiding star to reading, challenging and acquiring new skills. That child's greatest wealth is a skeptical mind which is also open to accepting the good in life while trying to understand the bad in order to change it into good. 

I have always maintained that basic human rights, beginning at birth, should include healthy food, decent/safe shelter, basic clothing, preventative health care, and unlimited public education for the capable. These elements could help those with unfortunate parenting to build their own cornerstones of wealth for their lifetimes. I also believe that any society unwilling to grant these at birth to all individuals is uncivilized. I will let the reader look around and determine the level of civilization around her/him by that standard. 

It is about time that those of us who are fortunate enough to have experienced the wealth of a civilized life with most of our human rights satisfied start to take the focus off material greed when constructing our ethics and ideals. There are so many human beings without the basics. Yes, we cannot catch them up, but we can try to help them see that bringing more children into their lives than they can possibly assist to any form of lifelong well being is simply wrong for their future lives and the human species. It is time for us to stop encouraging the less fortunate to reproduce more unfortunates. Today's Leftist propaganda ignores this basic foundation of human misery. It is all about rights and not at all about responsibility.

To be ability to think in secure quiet, to write on a computer, to publish ideas ... this is the wealth of being human in a technological society. Luxury travel, driving a luxury car, getting drunk after eating a gourmet meal ... that is decadence, not wealth.  As long as average people in The West hold up decadence as their aspiration, instead of real wealth of body and mind, civilization cannot progress, no matter how much mind control and speech control the so-called Progressives manage to legislate.