‘When you don’t have what you like, you have to like what you have.’ Photo: by Kat Yukawa on Unsplash
‘Sometimes wealth and fame bring the opposite to all that is good in life.’
Back to basics: Phil Gaskell reflects on a rich life
A few weeks ago, at the height of the Covid-19 crisis, I thought to myself: ‘In a few weeks’ time I could be in intensive care or dead’. It’s normal at my time of life to look back and evaluate the course of one’s life and, as Corona struck, it seemed even more a natural reflex.
Boris Johnson is reported to have said as a boy that he intended to become king of the world. I never had those thoughts, but I did feel that I had some specific contribution to make. I have no idea what that contribution was supposed to be, nor do I know if I have made it. I do know that I have tried to act as I believed to be right, and that it has often cost me dear. This is not a reason to congratulate me, because I could do no other. Growing up as a gay man has not made life easier, and that cost me dear too, but I don’t regret it. ‘Be yourself,’ said Oscar Wilde, ‘everyone else is already taken.’
As I look at the members of my family and my friends, I realise that I am most probably the least wealthy person I know in the material sense. That has a lot to do with those decisions I have felt I had to take, no matter what. But on the non-material level, I also realise that I’m very rich in terms of health, happiness, curiosity, inspiration and enthusiasm, and those gifts many do not find however rich and famous they may become. Sometimes, wealth and fame bring the opposite to all that is good in life. ‘What is success?’, a local Friend, Edward Haasl, often used to ask. Well, it is impossible to say. Perhaps it is something that we can only answer for ourselves inwardly.
Our reference point should not be those we know, because we Europeans are far too rich in every respect. Our ‘first world’ societies are so scandalously wealthy that we should be very troubled. So many in our world lack all life’s good things, or are not even permitted to enjoy the respect of others or any satisfaction or respect of self in their short lives. When walking in the countryside in southern Thailand a few years ago, I came upon a village of houses with thatched roofs and mud and wattle walls. – extreme simplicity, you might call it. To my surprise, a young man spoke to me in English. He explained that he worked in a nearby hotel. He must have read my thoughts as I looked at his home and vegetable patch: ‘When you don’t have what you like, you have to like what you have,’ he said. I was put to shame. Here was I, a rich European tourist, pitying him and his family who were living at a level that was most probably about the global average in terms of wealth and comfort. Perhaps the level that we should all be living at if we are to save the planet.
What right do we have to complain that we do not have all that we would like, or that we do not have enough time, or that we might die sooner than we would like? Our lives are a time of gifts for us all, even if we consider ourselves poor or wrongly treated. We should rather cultivate gratitude for what we have received without merit – life itself and all its riches.
Comments
I enjoyed this, thank you. Yes, many of us need to simplify our lives and cut our consumption of the Earth’s resources. However, should we perhaps be aiming to raise the Lowest Common Denominator rather than bring all into a way of life that leaves no energy or access to education to tackle the ills of the world? I would like to suggest that there is plenty for everyone but not enough for a dominant tiny percentage to keep to themselves. Thank you
By nyinmodelek@btinternet.com on 7th August 2020 - 14:32
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