The Search For Enlightenment

As a devotee of BBC Radio 4, I usually listen to Thought for the Day just before I get out of the car and get myself into the office, and today was no different. This morning was delivered by the writer Rhidian Brook and concerned the distribution of wealth. You can listen to it yourself here.

It’s a fairly well known fact that 90% of the wealth of the UK is in the hands of 10% of the population, which is a shocking state of affairs in my opinion. Of course it’s easy to be shocked when you aren’t one of the 10%, and it got me wondering whether I would be any more benevolent if I were.

Brook also relates the fable about the rich farmer who, having grown his crops, decided that he needed to store it somewhere safe, so that the peasants of the area couldn’t get their thieving hands on any of it. So he set about building a huge barn, and made it secure so it kept out the riff-raff. It must have taken quite a while to build it, but finally it was finished, and he was happy that his crops would now be safe.

Of course, there was far more than he could ever need himself, but he locked it all away and hoarded it for his old age. Ironically, the night the barn was finished, he died in his sleep. So the adage that ‘you can’t take it with you’ is anything but new. So I suppose the lesson from the story is, if you have enough of anything, money, food, whatever, you are fortunate. If you have more than enough, you are more than fortunate, and you might consider sharing some of it with others less fortunate.