Chapter 10 Economics - 5

Most of the luxuries, most of the so-called comforts of life, are not only unnecessary, but are a serious hindrance to human progress.So with respect to luxuries and comforts, the wisest live even more simply and modestly than the poor.The ancient philosophers of China, India, Persia, and Greece were all of a type who could never have been poorer in outer life and richer in inner life.We don't understand them well enough.Yet it is astonishing how much we know about them.The same is true of modern reformers and saviors of all nations.Only from the vantage point of what we call poverty and joy can one be a disinterested and intelligent observer.Whether in agriculture, commerce, literature, or art, the fruits of a life of luxury are luxury.Recently, there are philosophy professors everywhere, but no philosophers.Yet a professor is enviable because a professor's life is enviable.But to do the work of a philosopher is not only to have fine thought, not only to establish a school, but also to love wisdom in such a way that one lives a simple, independent, magnanimous, A life of trust.To solve some problems of life, not only in theory, but also in practice.The success of great scholars and thinkers is usually not that of emperors or heroes, but that of courtiers.They dealt with life, often in conformity with custom, as their fathers did, and so were not at all better ancestors of mankind.But why do humans always degenerate?What caused the downfall of those families?What is the nature of the extravagance which overwhelms nations?In our lives, can we be sure that we are not like this?Philosophers are ahead of their time even in the shape of life.He did not eat, drink, house, dress, and keep warm like his contemporaries.If a man is a philosopher, how can he not have a better way of keeping his body warm than others?

Man has been warmed in the several ways I have described, what next is he to do?Certainly not the same more warmth.He will not ask for more and plentiful food, for a larger and more splendid house, for richer and finer clothing, for more furnaces that burn longer and longer, and so on.Having acquired these necessities of life, he would not want the surplus but something else; that is, the holiday from menial work had begun, and now he would move on to life.Soil seems to be suitable for the seed, because it makes its radicle downward, and then it can confidently make the stem upward.Why can't man extend to the sky after taking root in the soil? —for the nobler plants are judged by their fruit, far from the ground, and finally in the air and sunlight, than by the humble vegetable.Vegetables, even if they are biennials, are only cultivated until they have established roots, and are often stripped of their tops, rendering them unrecognizable to many in flowering season.

I don't want to give rules to some strong character, who will concentrate on their careers in heaven and hell, who will build more grandly and spend more than the richest even, and will not be poor for it. We I don't know how they live,--if such people exist, as one dreams; and I don't make rules for another kind of people, who take their encouragement and inspiration from the way things are , cherishing reality as passionately as a lover—I consider myself one of those people: there are those who can live and work in any situation, whether they know it or not. They speak.I speak chiefly to those who are dissatisfied, who languish about the misery of their lives and the misery of their time when they should be able to improve their lives.There are some who complain, hopelessly, about everything, because they say they have done their duty.But I also have in my mind a class of people who appear to be rich but are in fact the most horribly poor of all classes, who have accumulated some spare money but don't know how to use it or get rid of it. , so they forged themselves a pair of gold and silver fetters.

If I tell how I have hoped to live my life in the past, I will surprise many readers who are acquainted with my actual situation, and still more astonish those who are not.I will just outline a few things that are on my mind. In any weather and at any moment, I hope to improve my current situation in time, and I want to engrave a mark on my cane; the intersection of the past and the future is the present, and I am standing on this starting point.Forgive my vagueness.My profession has more secrets than most.It's not that I want to keep it secret on purpose, but it's a characteristic of my profession.I would love to tell all I know, there is no "No Entry" sign on my door.