SATURDAY, 23 OCTOBER 2004
We need to function, and for that we need information – who we are, what we are, what we need, what we want, and how we should and may go about getting what we need and/or want.
We also need to create or assist in the creation of an environment that is conducive to us becoming what we want to be.
This process of “becoming” should however not be confined to people serving only their own agendas, their own needs or wants. The participation of individuals in a larger process which aims at a result that would benefit more than just a single person, or a handful of individuals, should always be sincerely and actively encouraged.
Why? For one reason, as you participate in the improvement of someone else’s environment, so someone else participates in the betterment of yours. We also share environments, both in the larger sense, and in a more domestic sense. If we all partake in the improvement of our common environments, we all benefit individually.
MONDAY, 1 NOVEMBER 2004
I am rich – until I need to replenish my cereal stock
Everyone knows how important it is to measure wealth … or then, everyone who is serious about money (are there actually still people silly enough to not be serious about money?).
Various criteria are used to determine wealth: the type of vehicle in which people cruise around; the number of vehicles the person possesses; the number of toilets someone has in his or her place of residence to choose from when essential business calls; the number of times per year one goes abroad, and in what class seat one plunks down his or her butt on the airplane; the quantity and quality of clothing that people have to drape around their nudity; shiny little pieces that people hang from their limbs, and so you can go on.
As you can certainly guess, I am also very serious about money. (Why else would I produce this piece of text?) But since when are you not taken seriously if you measure your wealth by the number of boxes of cereal you have in your kitchen cupboard? I mean, does anyone with three cars and seven toilets and a tailored suit and a gold watch know how much American muesli cost these days? And I have at least four full boxes in my kitchen!
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