If you had to choose, which one would it be.
“Not only are you rich, but you want to be loved as if you are poor.”
Some want it all.
Is poor and alone an option?
If that is what you would prefer. Absolutely.
Perhaps you think the likelihood of being alone, if one is poor, is more prevalent than being alone and rich.
There are more poor people - by a considerable margin - than rich ones. So a poor person has more peers to choose friends and lovers from. But he has little to offer. However, a rich one, though he has few peers, can always fish in the big pool of poor; he’s much less likely to be alone, except by choice. Finding companionship is easy; love is a whole different matter.
Being loved is a result of personality, actions and how much you care for other people. In this, your odds are the same, rich or poor.
Me, I’d be a really kind, amusing and generous rich person, so my hangers-on would eventually grow to like me, even in spite of themselves. Poverty makes me crotchety, amusing and cheap: I haven’t all that many friends. But then, I’m not so crazy about my own species anyway.
Rich and alone. I’ll adopt a pound puppy.
Rich and alone; relationships are overated. Yes, having a partner is nice, very nice at times; but in totality, I think love is a sham. Most people don’t possess the requisite virtues or mentality for a life-time relationship. Much of their feelings for each other are simply lust, ephemeral lust. It’s a tough choice, because lonliness is very painful. But since I am a philosopher, one who can make good use of solitude, one who can overcome loneliness, I think I would rather go down the lonely path with a nice estate and plenty of tea, as opposed to growing old in the slums with an annoying hag.
This sentiment is common among the less wealthy, it is a kind of comfort.
Harder for the rich man to find love.
Anyone who has ever struggled with poverty knows how extremely expensive it is to be poor.
James A. Baldwin
Yes, I am from the slums, the gutter. And I can tell you right now that I would rather have money and be alone, over having some fairy tale bullshit love in the ghetto. The burden of poverty supersedes any alleviation from a lovey-dovey relationship. Loneliness is no fun either, but if I had to choose between the two devils, I would choose loneliness and use it to my advantage as a philosopher. Knowledge is more important to me than woman. Anyways, I could always pay high-end prostitutes, if I needed some real ‘love’ lol.
I should think it would be far easier for a rich man (or woman) to find love. For one thing, they look and smell better. For another, they have better manners. And they can go where they like and meet whom they want to.
Rich and loved?
In my side of the world we never pray for richness. We pray for fortune.
Is there a reason for this?
We cannot ignore the past, our childhood experiences have a profound effect on us as adults. If a person has been really poor, it is difficult to leave that behind, you remain poor all your life, in your heart, no matter how much wealth you accumulate later on during a lifetime. The desire to be liberated from material attachments in a society that despises poverty, material ugliness and hardship, could be considered a form of madness.
I’m not completely against materialism; I like the internet - infinite knowledge at the access of my fingertips.
I’m not against relationships either, I just think that they are not what they are made out to be, like portrayed in movies and romance novels. Most relationships are like business contracts; you spread your legs in exchange for resources and shelter. He provides resources, because you have a nice body and you spread your legs. Once the legs close, the wallet closes; once the wallet closes, the legs close too. That’s the fundamental dynamic for most relationships. It is what it is. It’s a subtle form of prostitution. I’d rather just be blunt about it and pay a high-end escort; it’s cheaper and better ( they are more skilled ) - more bang for the buck. Maybe they make better sandwiches too? Should inquire about that.
I know you are a woman, Shield, so you are naturally antagonistic towards any man who can live his life independent of woman ( in the conventional dating sense ). It comforts you to believe that my psychology is based in bitterness and the like.
No Primal Rage, Indeed you are wrong.
I am not judging you, I wish only to know both sides of the above question.
As for the personal aspect of your post, I have the good fortune to be able to live on my own, in the manner of my choosing, which is, simply and away from the “madding crowd”.
Poor and loved, for it is said, ‘Blessed are the poor in spirit, for they shall inherit the Kingdom of God’. Mathew V.
I think that the extremes of both are bad. But, if I have to choose one extreme, I would certainly go for extremely poor but loved instead of extremely alone but rich.
After a certain point, richness would become useless if there was no one to share. But, being loved one would always help, no matter how poor one may be.
With love,
Sanjay
I have not been honest, really, in this thread.
I would rather be loved and poor, as opposed to rich and alone.
While having enough money to live in luxury for the rest of one’s life would be nice, how empty it would become, if there was nobody special to be there with you…
It would be such a dull, insipid, melancholic life…
Struggling in poverty is not good either, but having someone who truly cares about you, someone who is passionate about you, would mollify any other negative factor.
Whether people want to admit it or not, we all desire to be loved and recognized. This desire motivates us to keep afloat in the struggle for existence.
I’d like to have my own family someday. That is my primary ambition in life. It may seem banal at first glance, esp. to philosophers; but it’s actually a very profound thing - the experience of seeing your newborn for the first time, the joy in raising your children, the ecstasy of staring into your woman’s eyes as you make love to her, and so on. This is the way of life.
Of course, enough room and time for philosophizing is also crucial to my happiness, but I’d be dishonest with myself, if I stated that being loved isn’t the primary source of my happiness and well-being.
I would rather be poor and love (rather than loved).
There are countless miserable people who are loved (even the rich are loved).
It might be far easier for them to find someone who they think could love them, who may pretend to love them or someone who they are willing to or desperate to have in their life by showering the other person with the money they want. It’s also an easy thing to talk ourselves into loving someone because it makes it easier for us to co-habitat with.
That doesn’t necessarily spell love.
But I don’t think that it would be any easier to find love that could be meaningful or lasting without first taking the time to explore the other person and their values and what they would be willing to commit to.
i think that two poor people who genuinely love one another, have the same values, though not much money at all, and are willing to struggle together because of that love and commitment can be happier and more content than the above other two. Love soon flies out the window without those other realizations.
humunculus wrote:
I’ll drink to that!