Jay, this is a weird feeling to agree with you yet again. Money and fun, I agree are great. I too have had no money, but was working from a very young age, such as 5 years old, when I was learning about money, to get it by honest toil and clever ideas. achamchen.com
It is silly how some people without money and without things think they need to be unhappy and that lack of money or material goods is the cause of their unhappiness, with the presumed corollary that if they can get money and material goods, then they will be happy. Which, when they get them, they find they still aren't happy. And soon the spiral descent into alcohol, drugs, dissolution, despair and death takes over.
I wasn't living in a chicken run, with plastic over the windows, so my material standard of living was higher than your internal exile in the hutongs. We even had a Model A [after they were old and before they were vintage collector items] to swank around in [we would hide below the window line so our friends couldn't see us in our crusty old heap].
Fun, fun, fun! Piece of cake. It was an idyllic life. I don't feel any happier now than I did then. In some ways, it was easier then as there was less to deal with and nothing much to worry about. Just fun and working in the market gardens, or finding mussels, catching eels, collecting bottles, or any number of ways of earning some money and having fun.
Mqurice |
