Wanting
We speak often of the poor,
as though they are a distinct species
of human being -
the man sleeping beneath the bridge, the child with hollow cheeks, the mother counting coins beneath fluroescent supermarket lights.
Yet, poverty is not a condition suffered by a few unfortunate people. It is the ambience of human existence itself.
For what is poverty if not the experience of lacking what one desperately needs?
The dying man is indigent in a way no millionaire can remedy.
The lonely woman carries a famine no feast can satisfy.
The old are poor in time
the young are poor in wisdom
the grieving are poor in what can never be returned
the anxious are poor in peace
the ambitious are poor in contentment,
and the content are poor in ambition.
The scholar buries himself in books because knowledge promises to fill some terrible vacancy within him.
The wealthy man continues accumulating fortunes long after his needs have been met.
The loved continues to pursue affection though his heart is full.
We hold a common belief that abundance is the opposite of poverty, but perhaps it only functions as disguise.
The executive in the penthouse envies the laborer who sleeps soundly.
The laborer envies the executive's freedom from financial fear.
The healthy envy the rich. The rich envy the loved. The loved envy the young. The young envy the wise. The wise envy the ignorance that once allowed them to sleep.
We stand in an endless circle of envy, each convinced that the person beside us
possesses the missing fragment necessary for completion.
But completion never arrives because acquisition merely illuminates a new absence.
A starving man dreams of bread. When he receives bread, he dreams of security.
When he gains security, he dreams of meaning. When he discovers meaning, he dreams of permanence.
And permanence is the one thing the universe will never grant.
Perhaps that is why many of us are terrified by death - it reveals that we never possessed anything in the first place.
If no one leaves with a profit, who, then, is truly poor?
Every soul contains a hole in its center.
Some fill it with money
others with love
religion
achievement
distraction
but nothing is large enough to fill this void.
The beggar and the king belong to the same kingdom.
Both go to sleep wanting. Both wake wanting. Both die wanting.
To be human is to be haunted by absence.
And the biggest tragedy of all,
is that as we leave the world,
we depart as we arrived : wanting.
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