Angry Wealth

America has traditionally considered itself a land of “improvers”. An individual life was supposed to be one of financial advancement. Society was expected to progress as tinkerers brought forth new technological marvels. “New, improved” replaced “excelsior” as the mantra of the masses .

A core belief has also remained that satiation is impossible. You may get sick of too much ice cream, but never of ever better living conditions. Useful hedonism has no upper limit, and striving for the impossible is one of the things that makes an individual successful and society exceptional .

Okay. All that is hardly in dispute. Yet there seem to be very wealthy people not only sad but increasingly angry. They resent everyone else. They envy everything they do not have. They bitterly curse that they do not have more. They scream at cruel fate which limits them to mortality. They especially whine about social limits .

Perhaps we made a wrong turn somewhere. Technology makes it so easy to concentrate on baubles and gadgets that most of us neglect traditional pleasures. You can’t “improve” a sunset nor the joy of a rose garden (although industrial culture can easily ruin or destroy both). We’ve come to expect that “improving” our minds is only useful if it adds to our income .

I enjoy technology. The only caveat I have is that we may be wealthy already, and we should be properly grateful without always screaming for more.

Make America Something Again

Politicians and preachers have often invoked the image of the last golden age, so unlike these degenerate times. On the opposite pole, prophets of the future proclaim utopian visions. The common thread, of course, is that all you miserable little people will be much happier if you just listen to me (and contribute) .

I’ve always been as skeptical of future visions as I am of any dreams. I know enough history to understand how distorted nostalgia can be. Of course, I’ve never pitied myself as one of those alleged miserable masses of everyone. Most of my happiness has been founded in ignoring the sales pitches so common to our consumer culture .

However it’s been entertaining to follow social fads as they parade through society. At one time (see I can do it too!) religions, for example, may have been fairly stable. But now the latest viral sensations advise and pummel us hour by hour .

Among the silliest are the various “make great”. It is nothing new, people always thought they could “make great” by doing something or other, often involving wiping out other people. It’s the “again” that goes against my instincts, perhaps because I was raised in a progressive-directed environment .

Hate to tell people, but for us “ordinary” folks there was never a perfect world to which to return. Examined closely and honestly, life at all times has been chaotic and desperate and unfair. And fine, wonderful, and miraculous. 

Just like this now moment, the reality you should concentrate on. 

Again and again .

Self Limits

The young have sharp genius, grand ambitions, keen senses, and a clear mind. Those of us fortunate enough to age a long time find all the facilities dimming and eroded. We claim to be more experienced and wiser, but (even if true) it is not a great trade-off .

Visual artists generally notice these problems acutely. Sight is not as sharp, arthritis limits actions, muscles tremble. We notice the “decline” in the late works of most of them. Renoir with brushes strapped to his hands, Monet with nearly abstract water lilies, and oh so many who just stopped when they could no longer produce quality work .

But times change. Visual art is less bound to “reality” and any clumsy effort can be advertised as what was planned. I’ve taken a slightly different approach. I am drawing what I see and how I can do, not what anyone else sees and can do . I’m not in competition. My glory is in being unique, including accepting all the limits of being elderly .

Sure, that’s a self-serving rationalization. Pretending to be talented is not the same as being so. But the other thing about being old is that none of that really matters. That is simply a joyous activity filling time with art .

Finding my current limits, and using them as well as possible rather than concealing them or pretending they don’t exist is a kind of fun game. And I happily use it in other areas of life as well

Stability

Evolution is real. We have made sense of fossil records, understood how DNA makes it possible, experimented on fruit flies. I do not need to assume a god is responsible for design any more than I need believe that a god made possible my phone call to the plumber because some being had to design and decree the rules of electricity .

It’s troubling that we continue to believe in the wisdom of the ancients (a mere couple of centuries ago) when they were clueless about modern cosmology, biology, ecology, and physics. They were quite ignorant folks, making up rules to fit each fantasy of why the world is as it is .

I’m guilty of some of the same. I try to understand evolution, but I have trouble with time. I often can’t remember what happened last week but I calmly say life changes to fit changing conditions over incomprehensible eras . I think modern humans have ”only” been around for a few hundred thousand years, the dinosaurs were wiped out “only” 85 million years ago, life on Earth began “only” 1 billion years after the sphere settled down. It all seems tidy, rapid, comprehensible. 

But the key for life is how it is formulated in stability. DNA is an almost insanely complex mechanism to keep things the same. Environments tend to last a long time. Life adapts – slowly – within stable limits. Breathless news may report rapid mutations in viral diseases. Yet for all that – the end result is still a virus, doing almost exactly the same thing. Giant leaps in morphology are probably mythical .

This essay is composed as biologic support for my contention that most of us crave some security. Naturally.

Priest Kings

A long, long time ago, when people were foolish and ignorant, every tribe large enough to be considered civilized was led by a priest king. He was absolutely sure whatever he thought and did was decreed by the gods or other supernatural force such as destiny, and therefore must be right .

As people wised up, they often changed ruling patterns so that most of them would have some say in what was done. A few malcontents claimed the old days were better, and current problems were a curse from forsaken gods .

Happy news! The golden times have returned !

All the nuclear tribes are suddenly being ruled by the new priest kings, and their foolish and ignorant masses are happy to bask in the knowledge that whatever the government says to do must be right. Putin in Russia, Xi in China, Trump in the USA, Modi in India, Netanyahu in Israel – others too numerous to mention – have all returned with clear visions of what is, was, and must be. Even though each dream differs completely from the others.

Some of us remain behind the times, and still stubbornly revere logic and knowledge. We feel like the proverbial one-eyed man in the land of the blind .

The priest kings themselves are old and fragile and no one knows who may replace them. But with their current certainties and actions, it may well be that no replacements will ever be necessary .

Security

Ask folks what they want, and there are varied standard answers. Fame, fortune, health top the list for most. Friends, family, purpose fit in there somewhere. I suggest the most subconscious thing most of us crave is basic security. We like to know what we know, we hope what worked for us yesterday will still work for us tomorrow .

“Oh that’s silly” you will say. If things are bad we want a change. True, but only a change we can anticipate or accept. We always fear change for the worse. Sometimes we would rather realize a pattern than escape it. As Dylan Thomas wrote “there must, be praised, some certainty, if not of loving well, then not, …”

Gamblers seek excitement, but they not only think they know the odds, but securely believe they can always gamble again. Adventurers plan to return from their expeditions. These are bumps in the general security of their times .

Examine all social systems. The most stable tend to be exactly those where people are secure about what they do. Even if what they do is to start something new and different or to take a risk. Nobody wants to wake up in a jumbled inscrutable environment each day .

To some extent, that seems to be this society which is developing around us. It’s often scary. And no, I do not feel any more secure in simply recognizing that fact .