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The Concept of Voluntary Poverty
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The Never-Ending Anxiety Of Making Money
Modern life is filled with the never-ending anxiety of making money. Our approach right from the school days is to earn money and accumulate the things required in society.
It is a powerful cultural force that makes us accumulate stuff, and is not as practical as it is emotionally and psychologically significant. A failure to make money is considered irresponsible, and a poor person who is not earning is shunned in today’s society.
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Voluntary Poverty: Forgoing The Pursuit Of Wealth
History shows us plenty of examples of people pursuing goals that are not towards earning wealth.
The Roman statesman Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus had a successful public career but made no money, even though he came from an impoverished family. There are many such examples from India, where learned and creative individuals chose to live an impoverished life.
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Our Preoccupation With Money
Chasing money is in a way proof that one hasn’t found the real reason for being alive. We haven’t identified a passion that could replace the concept of earning a livelihood from our minds. Wealth is tied to prestige, respect and social status and the thought of becoming untethered from our ‘network’ is a thought akin to dying.
If we focus our lives on what matters to us authentically, then we will fall out of this romance with dollar bills, and get into our passions, which require little or no money.
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Weeping Over Life
‘What need is there to weep over parts of life? The whole of it calls for tears.’ - Seneca.
This dark remark gets to the heart of Stoicism, which says we get weepy and angry not on...
Peccatum Originale - Original Sin
St Augustine was deeply interested in finding explanations for the evident tragic disorder of the world.
Augustine contemplated the idea that human nature is inherently damaged because, in the Garden of Eden, Eve sinned against God by eating the forbidden fruit from the Tree of Knowledge. Her guilt was passed down to all people. As a metaphor for why the world is in a mess, Augustine implies that we should not expect too much from the human race.
Being Less Intimidated By Powerful People
‘Kings and Philosophers shit, and so do ladies’. This is a blunt phrase of 16th-century French philosopher Michel de Montaigne.
He wanted to let us feel closer to and less intimidated by people whose life might seem very impressive. Montaigne attempted to free us from uncertainty and shyness from thinking too much of others and too little of ourselves.
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Love is vital in recovering from serious mental illness
Love is critical to help us keep faith with life and rescue us from severe mental illness.
In fact, anyone who has ever suffered from mental illness and recovers will do so...
Love is unconditional approval
When we are sick in our minds, we have this punishing sense of how terrible we are, even if we often can't point to a specific crime. We are appalled by, and unforgiving of, who we are.
In this situation, a loving companion can make all the difference. They don't try to persuade us of our worth. They make pleasant conversation about something that won't make us anxious. They can tolerate how ill we are and will stick by us. They love us for who we are rather than what we do.
Love and non-judgment
Patronising pity can make the attention of others oppressive.
Loving companions do not judge us as beneath them. They don't oppress us by clinging to their belief in their own solidity and competence. Our companions indicate that they too might one day be in our place and suffer with and for us.
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Talking horizontally and encouraging honesty
Sigmund Freud discovered that there is a remarkable difference between what people will tell you when they are sitting up and looking at you in the eye, and what they will say to you when they ...
When we feel discouraged to speak
We perhaps don't realise that seeing another person's face can discourage us from speaking the truth. We may hold back and edit our presentation in the light of their reactions.
With Sigmund Freud's example in mind, we should find our own forms of horizontal conversation. After dinner, we might suggest that we all go and lie down somewhere and become newly conscious of voices and nuances when we don't have to look at others' expressions.