Sunday, November 16, 2008

On Materialism and Generosity

If you think you own "it" – it really owns you.

I obtain an endorphin rush when I give a stranger a gift whether it is in the form of information or object. Then, I get another emotive quantum (“rush”) when that friend appreciates the gift. The richest people in the world are the one’s who give the most. The artist, inventor, teacher, and the philanthropist are one and the same - we are on the VANGUARD and not in the rearguard.

Value is everywhere. The least valuable items are the ones that are displayed in the shop windows at the shopping mall. Those items are there to take away our spirit, and they are not there for our benefit but at times for someone else’s greed.

Go to the consignment store or the junkyard, and we will find real value there.

As Nandita taught me many years ago, the only thing that we can truly own is something that we have created ourselves whether it is an airplane model, a drawing, a poem, a conversation, a smile at a stranger, or a game of chess or tennis or hopscotch.

So, if we are hoarding goods in our homes because we perceive these items as being our possessions, then we are spending too much thought and time on acquisition and not enough on creating a work of art that we can truly own.

Speak to me: “I am opposed to all forms of deceit and cunning.”

-HippoParamus

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