“There is nothing so relaxed as the shoulders of a very wealthy person when the talk turns to money.” Jon Carroll, columnist for the San Francisco chronicle, once said this, and he is probably mostly right. For the rest of us—and even for the wealthy, actually–money is an issue and cause for anxiety. For those of us who are older, and whose future ability to make money is declining, it may be even more so. “Fear of loss of livelihood” is one of the Five Great Fears… Read More
Greed
I Want More!
“I want more”–this is the universal principle of a society built around consumer spending. And it is, by extension, the cry of all those who want more youth, through all the consumer products and services that we think can make us look, feel or be younger. The Buddhist world view responds, “Relax. It’s all right. You have enough.” But we don’t believe it.
I am thinking of three moments in literature, cinema, and television that all have a character saying, essentially, “I want more.” The first is from the Humphrey Bogart movie Key Largo, where Bogie is up against … Read More