Mq, there is more to life than survival.
I say that sitting on a leather chair that is situated on an Oriental rug, surrounded by shelves full of books, CDs, DVDs, albums, walls hung with tapestries and works of art, with boxes of jewelry, essential oils, incense, and tables bearing beeswax candles. Musical instruments here and there.
Husband has hundreds of boxes of board games. Children have hundreds of video games.
I am drinking fine craft beer. Husband is drinking fine mead, fine cider, fine ale.
Yes, we are fortunate, but we also work very hard. Studied hard, made good grades, work long hours. Get up every morning, go to work, do our jobs, come home, relax, and next day do it again.
We delayed gratification, and now we gratify ourselves.
Tonight we dined on fine raw oysters from Prince Edward Island, with mignonette sauce. Husband drank Guinness, I drank an IPA. He then dined on steak frites, while I had heirloom tomatoes and crab and ratatouille.
Husband is watching cable on a Sony Bravia, news about Hurricane Irene.
While we were at work, the gutter man came out and cleaned out out the gutters so the house will be safer if Hurricane Irene comes here. Earthquake shook the gutters loose. He hammered them back together. The tree man cut down two maples that were dangerous. Mitch and Joe, neighborhood kids, mowed our lawn. While we were at work, we earned enough to pay our bills, pay the people who did this work, and had more than enough left over to have a good time after work.
We are in a network, a web, of people who produce, and people who consume, most of the people who consume also being people who produce.
If the only point was survival, if we could not enjoy the fruits of our labor, we would not have worked so hard to get here, not work so hard to be here, nor be so productive.
The oyster farmer, the oyster seller, the cattle rancher, the tomato farmer, the brewer, the baker, the candle stick maker, the restaurant owner, the chefs, the waiters and waitresses, the tree man, his laborers, the gutter cleaner, the neighborhood kids, what would they do without us, and people like us, to pay for their goods and services?
If we denied ourselves, lived frugally and simply, would anybody be better off?
Would the world be a better place without cakes and ale? Not to mention Joe Strummer? ("Sharif don't like that! Rock the Casbah!") |
