Palatea

Wealth – Part 6

Part Six:  Environmental Wealth

Where we live and our physical surroundings shape us and contribute to our safety and comfort. As the dominant and most invasive species on this planet, we can shape and do shape much of our environment to our needs and desires of the moment. We inherit the labors of our forefathers, sometimes to our benefit, and sometimes as adversity. As a life form we require air, water, food, and safety to exist and to continue to exist. There is an adequate supply of these for all at present although their distribution is unequal. Their quality varies greatly, with effects on our health and other aspects of our well-being.

Location is a dominant determinant of environment. We evolved from the forests to farms, and over the ages our instincts responded to a rural environment. In our small towns all the residents were often all akin. And so we tend to be clannish. Strangers would be welcome. Transients brought news and then moved on. New residents grew into the community and conformed to its customs. This comfortable arrangement gave environmental wealth to the rural population.

Our populations are increasingly located in urban areas and in suburban areas. These areas vary greatly in size and their nature varies with location. All their residents depend on social services which are not needed in rural areas. Drinking water must be piped in, sewage piped out. Garbage must be collected, groceries offered for sale, and public forms of transportation are vital. New people come in clusters, bringing new customs and theologies with them and adhering to them.

Living among a diverse population and constantly adjusting to cooperate with strangers, the urbanite fails to understand the clannish and independent folk of the countryside. In the urban setting much independence is lost to interdependence. Government becomes the source of water, transportation, safety, education, recreation, and to a large extent employment. Government shapes the urban environment.

I have dwelled in suburban settings most of my life, and I like that non-comital existence between the two cultures. [Much of this belongs in Social Wealth]

Through my life I have had increasing control over my living environment.  Starting as a kid in a Public Housing Project on the lower East Side of New York City, I had lots of room to improve. The noise was endless in the day, and the odors unbearable.  There were the noises and odors of the 1930’s, and probably they are worse today.  The nights were not too bad; Horns and bells from the ships and tugs mostly. The dawn brought the shod hoofs of horses beating the pavement and the grinding sounds of steel wheel rims. An occasional whinny. Men shouting in the street below, vendors with horse carts and pushcarts vying for space by the curb.  The occasional roar of an airplane struggling to gain altitude from near-by LaGuardia Field. Tugboats blasting top and bottom blows from their boilers. Pots rattling in our kitchen as Mammy made my Pablum and boiled my father’s oatmeal.

Every wind brought a foul smell. The Fish Market was a few blocks away, where fish guts, scales and gurry ripened in the sun. A power station for the subway was on the other side, and burned brown coal to make steam. Across the street the inhabitants of the old tenements boiled cabbage and fried garlic to go with whatever affordable flesh they could find. Mostly from the fish market. And horse manure abounded.

When my older brother died we no longer qualified for public assistance, and moved to the suburbs.  I was delighted. Aside from the trains rolling through our back yard, it was quiet.  The only smells were cook smells, although in the spring we could smell the honeysuckle under our windows, and in fall, leaves burning. I could walk to school and knew a wondrous route through an apartment building where my friends and I could take the elevator from the first floor, front to the basement, back. (As a city kid, I knew elevators.)

It was environmentally a fine town. Only the right people were allowed to live there, and the industrial intrusions were confined to a limited space by the railway. The streets were tree shaded, there were ponds to skate on in winter, and a patch of forest between us and the next town, where the working class could live.

Wealth – Part 4

Part Four, Personal Wealth

Our values as people are largely the sum of our abilities and skills. Marketable skills contribute to our monetary wealth, social skills make our lives more enjoyable, ability to solve problems gets us out of trouble, and living skills make our lives easier. I have been diverse rather than focused on any skill set. I had wanted to be an illustrative artist as a boy, and to vanquish this folly my parents and teachers demanded volumns of teaching of writing skills.

So I became a writer of sorts, majoring in English in college, writing some poems and becoming the editor of the college literary magazine.

English majors fare poorly in war, and war was demanding me. I joined the Navy, becoming an officer and really enjoying operating a ship at sea. That is how I came to my professional career writing books to teach other fellows how to operate ships at sea. Some of the material I wrote demanded illustrations which I had to provide. I was mostly self-trained, but machinery is still-life, and I could handle it.

And when I retired I became an artist for some years.

So I have some value as a writer, some value as a mariner, and some value as an artist.

Seque? Does this belong in Social wealth?

Our attitude toward life and ability to distinguish the important from the trivia help control our destinies.

Those who have personal liberty tend to take it as a right. Those who lack it yearn for it. It is often abused, which threatens its continuance. When understood as self- governance it is best preserved. When taken as license to be uncontrolled and unaccountable, social entities must provide control and accountability. Crowded populations must surrender more liberties to government than those who live further apart. And, as the other forms of wealth, what you do with liberty determines its personal value to you. The freer man has the greater personal value, the slave has his personal value lost to his value as an object.

Socialital factors influence personal worth. Some societies value individuals highly, others regard all but a few as exploitable resources, and even as chattels. There are two measures of this value. One is how your society values you, and the other is how you value yourself. These measures influence each other, and you can influence both.

Sometimes in response to our societies, sometimes for other reasons we project or emphasize a certain personal image. An extreme is wanting to be feared; a more common one is wanting respect. Some would be seen as kind and generous, others as cold and frugal. Many want to be lovable, some wish to be pitied.

Between how you wish to be seen and how society regards you, lies the practical, function person you are. It is usually most healthy to regard yourself well.

Wealth – Part 5

Part Five, Spiritual Wealth

This topic is the most difficult for me because by anyone’s measure I am not a spiritual person. I actually see two systems of measurement for all the wealths I include here.  First, we measure ourselves. Second we are measured.  Either way is most useful to the measurer…  So here I will deal mostly with the personal, and try to proportion that to the abstract.

“What is my worth to God” I might ask. [Work this in somewhere.] I hear a lot about praying and many insist it is powerful.  I think it is, but more in a humbug sense.  Many local congregations have prayed that hurricanes would not strike them.  Three hurricanes missed us this year, and our prayers were successful. The prayers in areas hit hard probably are not saying much, but we agree they were all sinners and deserved what they got.

My mother called prayer “Adding to God’s job jar.”  I seem to have more success asking what God wants me to do, rather than tasking him. “Anything you want to put in here? I have asked several times as I write this. (And yes, it is getting sort of long.) My belief, unshared, is that this only works between me or you and our holy spirit or personal God. (I do not mean the Personalized God – God in human form.) When someone else tells you what God wants you to do, that is servitude, not spirituality.  

I was not raised to be spiritual, nor did my life experiences serve to develop spirituality.  In fact I really don’t know what spirituality is.  I do recall some experiences which I take to be spiritual.  I was born into the depression, and life dealt with necessities and realities. Few had time for fantasy.  My father was a lawyer.  He insisted on reasoned judgments. My mother had a preacher uncle and a liberated life-style. Religion and its attached faiths, to her, were boring and restrictive. (So too was motherhood.)

One of my premises is that intuition is essential to faith. And I had my intuition tamed at an early age.  My dreams of my dead brother which impelled me to get up in the night to play with him did not go over well with my parents. (They had their own problems on that score.) I learned to read by sight-recognition of words, but I had to set that aside to learn to spell out the words.  I would add numbers in my head, but once in school I had to show my work, a different thought process. My best teachers (I thought) made me analyze and draw conclusions from information I was given. The lesser instructors just made me remember the information. Until I had been tested.

For many, church or religion are their source of spiritual wealth. I fell short on that score.  My parents were social church goers; Easter was mandatory, other Sundays optional.  Except for me. I was sent to a socially important church (Episcopal) every Sunday. There I was taught to not believe some things I was learning in school. I guess I became difficult, and was put in the hands of the lady who handled difficult cases.  In a later time and under different conditions she would be called “A party Pink” or Fellow Traveler.” I learned I could doubt stuff, and we have duties and obligations to our fellow man.  And that Franklyn Roosevelt was not basically evil. (That lady was a misfit like me.)

The church was preparing me for confirmation.  There was a whole list of stuff I didn’t believe which I had to swear before God I believed.  I went to my lawyer (dad) to work out the perjury issue.  We shifted to a more honest church in New York City where Mother could parade on Fifth Avenue Easter morning. Practical, cool, and not spiritual.

When I think back on my experience in the Navy, I see occasions when I had to think rationally, and times when I acted from instinct.  I think of the instinct as being spiritual in nature.

In danger and in war we often must act or react with great speed. In my day                                                                                                                                   this only could be done well by well-trained men and women.  (Computers are replacing us now.) There is no time to put two and two together. This requires an instantaneous processing of sensed information by a part of our minds we never consciously access.

It was a stormy night, the second in a row. I had the watch on the bridge. I was soaked and had been for two hours. My lookouts were soaked, the port lookout was scared, the starboard fellow numb but determined. The captain was in the charthouse, resting on a stool, wet and tired. He had been awake two days. The night was black and I was sensing the incoming waves. Some were breaking salt water over the bridge.

Something told me to bring in the lookouts. “Get in here and dog the hatch” I shouted over the wind. They staggered in as the ship rolled to a greater angle and then started back. I tried to see through the port, but all was black. I had a sense, it wasn’t fear but urgency.  I could feel the ship, I was of the ship. The ship and I had to do something.

“All stations standby for roll. Left full rudder, starboard ahead full” I was loud, clear, and urgent. The talker relayed my message to all stations – the engine room, information center, and after lookout. The helmsman spun his wheel to turn the ship left, and in the engine room the throttleman added speed to the right propeller to aid the turn left. The Captain woke up and made his way to the wheelhouse. The bow rose a bit, the ship heeled hard right; we all hung on.

 Long thin ships penetrate big waves like a needle.

The ship plunged into the wave and its waters welled over the wings of the bridge. Seconds seemed like hours, and the waters passed. Another rogue wave didn’t get us. I had done my part as a team, and all the others had done their parts. Not much thought involved, it was mostly intuition and instinct.

I really don’t know if I knew what I was doing then. It was like another person inside me had acted. It isn’t the only time I had experiences like this; the North Atlantic makes sailors and kill sailors.  When this one happened, I was the product of a long process.

Protestant religions recognize that some people sometimes have a spiritual moment, described by the Methodists as “A heart strangely warmed.” Our Southern self-styled Christians call it “Born again.” I may have experienced this once, when I went with my sister to a service given by a Jesuit priest in some meeting hall. I don’t recall the words, but they brought me to love Jesus, the man. Before, he had always been an abstract figure, spectral and divine. A jug of wine was passed, and some saltines. I left with a strange feeling, unafraid and a bit light headed. This was my Born Again experience. (Of course it might have been a contact high, the parishioners were a hippy bunch.)

My naval training began in a naval prep school. I learned some history, tied some knots, and performed that manly form of ballet called military drill.

At collage I was accepted into the Naval Reserve Officers training program in spite of flat feet.  I learned the basics for naval service, and being slated for the reserve forces I was not instructed in career development.  This set me apart from my peers on active duty since their agendas were focused on promotion and unblemished service records. I was focused on doing my job and hopefully seeing some of the world.

My job involved mostly rational activities like operating a steam plant and making sure all the scheduled events of the day occurred on time. As time passed I became responsible for other guys. In this I used crew-building, which suited my nature.  Others took a more authoritarian approach, which worked for them. Crew building requires certain attitudes. Self-importance is not one of them. The group working together becomes a formidable force. I have my job, which is to ensure the crew knows what and why it is to do things. They know how to do it. Trust is important, and I tend to trust people. I have to earn and keep their trust. It is reciprocal. I have encountered some who don’t fit this.  Group pressure usually changed them, and one or two I had to get rid of.  I rate trust as a spiritual value.

I submit empathy as a form of faith. It has many manifestations, and ability to empathize is an important strength.  Basically it is feeling outside your own body.                                   I have empathized with some people – not everyone. And with pet dogs. And with machines, which is weird.  As I gained experience at sea – the “School of the Ship” I began to “Feel” the ship, particularly when I was driving it.  Very hard to describe, but I have aviator friends say they have the same feeling with their aircraft.  It may be the reason I like to drive a sports car. It was this feel of the ship that helped me out of some tight spots at sea. (I served in and drove the smaller ones. One tanker I cruised on just smelled. Not much feel there.)

Spiritual wealth can be theologically or psychologically defined. It can come to us in delusional and temporary forms. Magic mushrooms will do the trick for a while, but divorce us from many of our other forms of wealth. Successful self-deception can comfort us, but at the expense of other attributes. “To thine own self be true …”

Faith in fables, whether religious or political can be a foundation for a sense of security. By bonding to like-thinkers we take comfort in the social support of the church or tribe. Pure logic and raw truth and the appearance of cynicism, make few fast friends and give us a limited social circle. Security and freedom from the stresses of fear are an important spiritual value.

We live among an array of functional fallacies. Some strengthen us, others make us evil. They enrich us or impoverish us.  From a practical standpoint, fallacies can drive us humans as well as, or better than, truth. I find the fallacies (Faith) of religion very useful. They help us deal with things like death.  I feel less helpless when I can blame God for misfortunes.  If I feel God endorses my enterprise, I have the ultimate motivation to work at it. Others, with greater religious faith, are stronger and richer than I in this respect.

Since spirit is emotional in nature and may be hard to control, it is both a strength and a vulnerability. Fearlessness may be poor assessment of danger while courage is willful acceptance of danger to achieve a purpose. Either might be applied to overcome real or imagined dangers. The strength of character is equally valid. We face many delusional dangers in this world. Our response depends on our acceptance or assessment of them. We take comfort in an assurance that we are bound for Glory and those we don’t like are going to Hell. Even if we inform those who have a difference of faith of their fate, they usually happily go about living their present lives. Some even think we have our destinations mixed up.

Politicians of all sorts take advantage of our emotional nature to meet their need for our money and votes. They select or conjure dangers that can be cured by their philosophies. They who stand for peace see strong militaries a threat while those who think peace is best maintained by a convincing defense will advocate for strong forces. There are those who think different means apply to different situations and these are mostly ignored as being boring or dismissed as being undecided or confused.

{The only way to ensure peace on Earth is to destroy all life on it. Everyone knows that, no one wants that. Well, almost no one.]

Few of us are content with the wealths we have. This can be good since it causes us to develop our powers and exercise our talents. Complacency can be a lonely trait. When discontent becomes greed, an unacceptable expression of desire with concomitant self-delusions, it is personally and socially destructive.

Taken as an average over my lifespan, I was surrounded by material wealths that would have been the envy many. Possession of a television set, much less a color one, is one such instance. I am grateful, (even though the present video programming makes up in variety and abundance what it lacks in quality).

We project our spirits. Our bearing, dress, expression, and conversation all show to some extent how we feel about ourselves at the moment. We can be bright or gloomy, trusting or suspicious, giving or needful, boring or interesting. We can see this in others, they can see it in us. We respond to what we sense. People with positive feelings are more fun or more comfortable to be with. A positive spirit increases our social wealth. Association with positive people increases our spiritual wealth. I seem to associate with both poles.

A strong spiritual asset is an ability to exist outside ourselves. Sympathy and empathy create a shared spirituality which makes the group stronger than its parts. Empathetic associations can be random and of the moment. They can be long term and even life-long. Although the Government may view marriage as its business, this is properly only for tax purposes – a monetary matter. Personal and spiritual elements should not be governmental institutions. (If the Government could tax friendship it would.) When a religion intrudes into Government, then that government tries, with varied success, to rule a largely rebellious “Unfaithful” part of thepopulation.

Spirituality can enhance the sense of self and this can be a problem.  An absence of conscience is invaluable to many who seek monetary wealth or social power. A forgiving church can spiritually strengthen those who exploit those who are weaker than themselves. The forgiven or the Chosen can express and exercise their hatreds with impunity. Fortunately, few take advantage of this, and society places checks on some of those that overdo it. Also we seek safety and comfort in our lives. A Church can be like a walled residential community. In it, you adapt to the attitudes and beliefs of fellow residents and this gives a strong sense of security. As long as you remain within the walls. Those who venture outside often gain perspectives that turn them into shiftless wanderers. Interesting people, those.

[I have been taking spiritual wealth as a positive asset. It may also be a negative attribute if you consider spiritual wealth to be freedom from responsibility. Many have wealth in this form, being without care or conscience.  The sociopath no doubt sleeps well as he plots his dominion and exploitation of others.]

Giving, is a way to buy spiritual wealth. I feel good about donating to some charities. This works when the giving is not mandated. Each April I donate funds to my government, on its demand. Knowing that some of my giving will feed the homeless and house the hungry gives me some solace, but it could go down better. Saint Paul gave me good advice in I:13 – Giving, or Charity done with love is the sweetest. Automatic payments from my bank account are not very thrilling to me.

Giving of my time and labor is a more precious coin. In fact this is the sort of irrationality that makes spiritual wealth hard to define and measure.  In my volunteer work, I associate with others giving the same; this environment makes the time given, with no other compensation, quite rewarding.

Love is a multi-faceted form of spirituality. At its extreme, the love between two people, particularly in its first stages, can be debilitating as all other priorities are set aside to focus on the beloved.

(I wanted to insert a note here but by the time I shifted to italics I forgot what it was. Something about loving wisely being an oxymoron)

In a broader social sense, loyalty is a common form of love and very spiritual in its nature.  Through many experiences I have learned to love my country. Like money, this is only of value to me when requited by the other people of the nation also having a loyalty to it. When this sharing is diluted by others replacing loyalty to nation with loyalty to political parties or various other associations, the spiritual value of my loyalty is degraded. I love this county less because there are such people in it.

Another aspect of the sense of loyalty is a primal, hereditary loyalty, we all sense toward the human race.  When we hear of suffering of any humans, we have an urge to respond.  Many charities flourish taking advantage of this impulse.  And when our statesmen decide to go to conflict with other states, a first move is to lessen the humanity of their targets. The practice of other religions is a convenient point of leverage, and has been used throughout history.  Ethnic and racial differences work nicely too. When we hear terms like “Those people” we know it is time to harden our hearts and gird our loins for battle.

Dreaming or conceiving of an afterlife is a good way to learn what your priorities are.  Regardless of destination there are those I would like to be with.  And there are those I would avoid no matter how lavish their future neighborhood.

As I return to write more here, I lost my sister two months ago. She was very religious, rich in spirit what she lacked in tangible assets. I turned to some religious study, which did not embellish my faith very much, but I did gain some understanding. Now, I don’t feel it wrong to believe in an afterlife in heaven and future reunion. In a teleological sense it doesn’t have to be true to be effective in softening grief. Our mental toolbox is full of mysterious gadgets which can be properly or improperly applied. Some of our most effective tools may not have yet been discovered! A mastery of my own mind would be my idea of spiritual wealth.

Wealth – Part 3

Part Three, Social Wealth

[Our social wealth is the strength of our relationships with other people and social institutions.]

Over my life my social wealth has varied greatly as my environment and human affairs have changed. My first awareness was during the Great Depression as a small child dependent on my parents.  We lived in a publicly subsidized apartment on the lower East Side of New York. The building provided housing to families of young professionals living near the poverty level. There were actors, artists, aviators, and my father, an attorney.

Family is usually our primary social group. It can range from an adult pair, or a parent and child, to an expanded troupe of tribal size. In less fortunate circumstances it may be an institution such as foster care, prison, or boarding school. From our infancy we are formed socially by family. Our attitudes and perspectives, our methods of dealing with others, our loves and hatreds are mostly the products of family teaching and experiences.

I had a good family, born of a series of Victorian households with well entrenched standards.

[In this world the quality of nations varies greatly. Too many are dangerous places to live, ruled by dictators, or torn by tribal and religious strife. Some, lacking more productive employment, rate the quality of nations by their livability. The highest rated tend to be small (with less to go wrong) and with governments that serve, not rule, the people.] I know of no one who packed up to move from Denmark to Finland because the latter was more highly rated. Most who move internationally do so to escape really bad societies, or to have better employment.

[One foundation of social wealth is loyalties.  We instinctively have a loyalty to our families, and to varying degrees to our friends. This is a reverse form of wealth, we are enriched by the loyalty of the others in our group.  As Americans we are enriched by the loyalty of others within our country. That others may divert this loyalty to political parties dilutes this wealth, but it may be replaced if we agree with the other’s politics. To a large and hard to measure extent we, or many of us have a primal loyalty to the human race. When other folks in distant lands are beset by some tragedy of nature or evil of man, we are inclined to come to their aid, or at least send our institutions to their aid, or to avenge the wrongs they suffered.]

[On a more intimate scale, our communities directly affect our social wealth. These give us access to social connections and benefits. Institutions such as schools, churches, sports facilities, entertainment, and neighborhoods are the venues through which we make friends, share activities with our families, and exchange information.](Discuss Bronxville)

Our societies influence us and contribute to our well-being. In a representative government we influence our political society. The degree to which a government is representative is dependent on how active and interested the people are in the government. Many of us just take what we get. Others are active and effective to various degrees and ways.

For some, influences and pressures from our societies influence what forms of our personal being we emphasize, project, or hide.

[Recorded notes 10/5/17: I believe I have observed that some nations are governed by the idea that theirs is the duty to rule their populations, and other governments feel they should serve their populations.

I have observed that many who believe people should be ruled believe that there is an inherent evil in us all. This might be of a genetic source but more likely this attitude is the product of life experience and religious instruction.

My belief, reinforced by life experiences, is that people have good intentions and will aid their fellows when needed and possible. They are good.

We tend to associate with others having the same feelings, and thereby reinforce one or the other of these attitudes.

(This makes liberals and conservatives?)

Wealth – Part 2

Part Two – Monetary Wealth

Money is a convenient measure of wealth, and if not valued for itself, it is valuable because it can be exchanged for the other forms of wealth. It is comforting to have enough of it. I know of no one who thinks they have too much of it.

Money, it its current form, physically has only pictorial value on paper or bas-relief sculpture on base metals. Its value in exchange lies in our agreed covenant to accept its posted values. When the government that issued a currency falls into disarray, its bills and coins lose value. When I visited Russia, its “money” had no value outside its borders.  When the United States went off its silver standard its dollars lost significant value in foreign exchange. Somewhere I have some coins from the past and from foreign lands. Some are real silver and those are at least fifty years old.

Paper money has evolved from letters of credit to government-issued promissory gold and silver notes and then to our present bills which depend on our faith in government for their value. (There is also a law that you must accept them.) This seems to work very well. When enough of us believe in the same thing, it becomes almost reality.  (In the U.S. one can redeem a dollar bill and get twenty nickels. Made of a copper-nickel alloy, they actually are worth about five cents each.) Money continues to evolve, and may disappear as a physical entity.

At any one time your monetary wealth can be measured simply by a sum of your accounts and cash on hand, subtracting what you owe. And “Simply” will not satisfy our government or creditors. Also investments are represented in monetary terms, but are promises and speculations. My dwelling is probably taxed at a monetary value which is an appraiser’s guess. But I have to come up with the cash for the tax.

In times concurrent to this writing (I might call  ”Modern times”) many regard their credit ratings as monetary wealth. This is a form of faith-based wealth which I may get to later. Maybe.

Money is almost a necessity of life. We acquire it by a variety of means. The most common is trading our skills and time to earn wages. Some receive it by inheritance from family and other social ties. Loans and investments are another source, and we can exchange tangible wealth for it. For those in need, some societies provide welfare in various forms; cash and in kind. When all else fails there is begging, theft, and fraud. In our possession it can be cash in hand, credit accounts, checking accounts, other bills of exchange such as money orders, and statements from savings and investments.

When money moves through a society it creates wealth. Passing through some hands it creates intrinsic wealth, raises social status, lifts spirits, and funds governments through taxes. Like some ancient coinage being shaved, some take a percentage and pass the rest on. When it ceases to move, its society has less monetary wealth working and all are poorer because of this. Saving, however, is necessary because we need money for emergent situations, or expected retirement, so some currency is always idle. Some societies provide greater security in guaranteed medical care, assurance of a pension, and welfare when needed. In proportion to this security, money flows more readily and everyone has a better chance to get some of it.

Note: Need develops intellect; many born to poverty prevail to great profit. A surfeit of means can lead to indolence and ignorance. Just saw  a new book out by a teacher observing the brightest students are not the best; the best are the most driven – those with “Grit.”

Saving can contribute to an economy when placed as loans. It can sequester wealth when invested in speculations in intangible enterprises such as stock markets.

Think of money as a tool – not useful physically (washers?) but valued for what it can do.  And as a tool it can do both harm and good.  A necessary evil, becoming less necessary (other means of exchange replacing) and being used for more evil. Most crime is a cash economy. Theft of goods is usually for their exchange cash value. Theft of food eaten by the thief may be pardonable.