The “Wealth Virus” inoculates the young (2)
© Eso A. B., 2012
Iit may not be a good idea to invite an infection by the “Wealth Virus” other than in its manifestation as “a gift” with “no strings attached”. The reason for this warning is that the virus is potentially lethal to one’s moral standing as a human being, whose purpose in living is to do good or at the very least to test the doability of good.
It is advisable to guard children from becoming infected by the virus. The inspiration for such an advice comes from sometimes hearing that the children of wealthy parents are “spoiled”, i.e., act younger than their years, say, as compared to if they had grown up in the countryside and had been entrusted from the earliest possible age with minor responsibilities, such as animal herding, chicken feeding, sweeping up the yard, berry picking, and burying dead mayflies.
A horrific example of a bad infection by “the wealth virus” is the story (I either read it somewhere or was told of it) of a young son of a wealthy Russian/Latvian who went bankrupt, committed suicide, and left behind a son who refused to eat his porridge. The boy refused to eat, because prior to his father’s bankruptcy, he had been used to having a fruit dish of chunks of skinned oranges, mellon rind, Marachino cherries, all mixed together with a spoonful of honey.
When a plain dish of oat meal porridge covered with bacon rinds was put before him, he pushed the plate away. “It stinks,” the boy said, even after his governess had sprinkled the dish sesame seeds.
The reader should be warned that I am not really interested in the “virus” as a “particle”, but as a meme that has found a perch on either mine or your mind. Therefore, when I am talking about “the wealth virus”, I am thinking of it more of as a fantasy virus. When fantasy viruses multiply and begin to form clusters of themselves, they become a Wealth Virus Meme Dream. Sorry, the link leads only to “the wealth dream” of a cat. But you get the idea, the “stray” cat becomes a famous pianist. A poor boy may become through a meme dream an insufferable oligarch
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Iit may not be a good idea to invite an infection by the “Wealth Virus” other than in its manifestation as “a gift” with “no strings attached”. The reason for this warning is that the virus is potentially lethal to one’s moral standing as a human being, whose purpose in living is to do good or at the very least to test the doability of good.
It is advisable to guard children from becoming infected by the virus. The inspiration for such an advice comes from sometimes hearing that the children of wealthy parents are “spoiled”, i.e., act younger than their years, say, as compared to if they had grown up in the countryside and had been entrusted from the earliest possible age with minor responsibilities, such as animal herding, chicken feeding, sweeping up the yard, berry picking, and burying dead mayflies.
A horrific example of a bad infection by “the wealth virus” is the story (I either read it somewhere or was told of it) of a young son of a wealthy Russian/Latvian who went bankrupt, committed suicide, and left behind a son who refused to eat his porridge. The boy refused to eat, because prior to his father’s bankruptcy, he had been used to having a fruit dish of chunks of skinned oranges, mellon rind, Marachino cherries, all mixed together with a spoonful of honey.
When a plain dish of oat meal porridge covered with bacon rinds was put before him, he pushed the plate away. “It stinks,” the boy said, even after his governess had sprinkled the dish sesame seeds.
Does “the wealth virus” stink?
Before I begin to answer the question, let us check if we know just what a “virus” is. As the link imbedded within the next highlight explains “a virus is a small biological entity”. Though a virus is not visible with an ordinary microscope, it can be seen by electron microscopes. I once heard a student describe a virus as: “… a strange looking thing”.
“The wealth virus”—is it a strange looking thing? The above link, begins by describing a virus as
…a small infectious agent that can only replicate inside the cells of another organism. The word is from the Latin ''virus'' referring to poison and other noxious substances, first used in English in 1392. ''Virulent'', from Latin ''virulentus'' (poisonous), dates to 1400. A meaning of "agent that causes infectious disease" is first recorded in 1728, The term ''virion'' is also used to refer to a single infective viral particle. The plural is "viruses".
The reader should be warned that I am not really interested in the “virus” as a “particle”, but as a meme that has found a perch on either mine or your mind. Therefore, when I am talking about “the wealth virus”, I am thinking of it more of as a fantasy virus. When fantasy viruses multiply and begin to form clusters of themselves, they become a Wealth Virus Meme Dream. Sorry, the link leads only to “the wealth dream” of a cat. But you get the idea, the “stray” cat becomes a famous pianist. A poor boy may become through a meme dream an insufferable oligarch
In the public realm, a Wealth Virus Dream is not unique. It manifests itself in various popular sayings, such as, for example: “A pot of gold at the end of the rainbow,” and popular songs such as “If I were a rich man
That is one way to measure at how fast a meme is spreading.
In “If I were a rich man”, I especially liked the lyrics that tell that wealth is a “long staircase just going up and one even longer coming down”. Bu, bu, bu, bu, bubu, bububum! That is a mine meme, too. I liked the song especially since going up may be likened to going forward, and coming down may be likened to going back, way back into the past. Sometimes, memories of “old times” are indeed sweet enough to bring tears to one’s eyes.
Going into the past means to retrace history as if one holds on to it by a golden thread or a moon beam (I wish we could call it ‘Dreamtime’, and be in the field with Australian aborigines). Today many dreams are however spoiled, because retracing the path of wealth exposes everyone to “the Wealth Virus”. Big thefts, oligarch size, and small thefts, pocket thieves, all come bunched together like aged turds in a cesspool.
A warning! A close look of the Wealth Virus may turn out to be a grim experience. Unlike Lewis Carrolls’ story of “Alice Alice
The story of the “Wealth Virus” may tell of death coming as a result of not ‘natural causes’ [a death by a virus is a naturally iological cause]. Instead, we may discover that a “Wealth Virus” that blows up our dead bodies like a balloon (not filled with air but nightmares) through getting us to overspend and overconsume before we die. Bu bu bu bu bubu bubu bum!
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