ri¢h #3 : on my own terms

My old definition of being rich was I am able to go running outside in the light of day any day in the dead of winter.
   So how did this fail me when Roscivs died? Technically, I could still do that (at least for the first winter).

When I was a newly-married college student, I was dirt poor. If you look just at $ in the bank vs my expenses, I was perhaps the poorest I've ever been.
   But I was student poor. That's not poor poor. I didn't even feel poor. I didn't even know what it was like to feel poor. I felt like I didn't have a lot of money, but that's not the same. I wasn't expecting it to get worse; I wasn't expecting it to stay the same; I was expecting it to get better. When you're poor poor, that expectation is absent.

Last year my SIL Thea said that "Leon's poor". Bjorn said no, "he's not poor. His earning potential is heavily weighted toward the future."
   A reasonable expectation of future earnings is an important sort of rich. This has to do with how I felt poor when Roscivs died. I had a lot of expenses, with no reasonable expectation of future earnings. It got worse every day.

Now it's getting better all the time.


My old definition belonged to a universe that ceased to exist when Roscivs died. Furthermore, it had a lot of non-monetary contours mixed in with its monetary ones. There's the rub when it comes to me and riches. To me, for me, rich is about outcomes way more than it is about income.
   {What about to me, for others?}
   My current definition (I have the funds I need to pursue and support my health) has a lot of the same elements as my old one: outside time, free time, health [running], security in times of scarcity [sun in winter]. It's intertwined with (if not predicated on) Bjorn's love and support.

(I tried to make it one that wouldn't fall apart like the last one did, but that just can't be helped. When everything falls apart everything falls apart.)

So. Ok. Health funds are enough for me to be rich. I went out of my way to make my new definition money-focused. I thought it to be an important part of the exercise. But when it comes down to it I just can't seem to conceive of me feeling rich without a bright future filled with health and family. My semantic wobbling is unveiled: "rich" can involve a nebulous "happiness" as much as "money".
   I've been trying since the outset of this li'l blog series to clarify my terms. Clear terms are, after all, linguistic manifestations of clear thoughts. I don't know how successful I've been (uh oh?), but the exploration has gotten me closer to clear. If it's all still murky, at least it's an examined murkiness! 
   It would be less sloppy if I consistently used one term (say, "rich") to mean being rich (having money) and another term (say, "wealth") to mean feeling rich. And not having money ("poverty"?) and feeling poor ("destitute"?) could use their own terms too. Maybe I'll try using those clarified terms now.

I'm about to get less rich and more wealthy. I'm closing my studio; I'm going to stop teaching. It's fair call it retirement. What I say, though, is that I'm trading some income for some outcomes.

ri¢h #2

Before Roscivs died I thought that owning your privilege was an important ethic. (Still do.) I was writing a piece anent in the days before he was diagnosed. I was proud of my claims to privilege. I owned up!
   I sometimes have trouble when privileged folks want to have their cake and deny it, too.

When I moved house from BeHi after Roscivs died, a doctor friend—a medical doctor, a general care practitioner—helped heft and haul some of my larger items. After the heavy lifting was done, a little group went out to get pastries.
   I remember sitting in a tiny pastry shop hearing Mr. Dr. declare he's not rich. He spoke with deep, bitter frustration about how people think doctors are rich, but he's not: it's surgeons and specialists that make the big money.
   You can't brain someone with a croissant. I didn't even try. I just sat there.

Employment fact: (in these parts) even the lowliest GP makes 6 figures. How is six figures not rich? Seriously?! Mr. Dr. may not be the 1%, but he's the 5%.
   I would feel less chagrined hearing Jeff Bezos say I'm not one of those rich tech people: it's Bill Gates that makes the big money. Pretty much everyone (like, 99% of people) would see that that's just plain ridiculous. But move it closer to home and people put "rich" back on the horizon; people somehow don't see that Mr. Dr. is playing the same game.
   Poor schmuck.

Dirty Richie (warning: privilege ahead!)

Being poor and feeling poor don't necessarily co-occur. Being rich and feeling rich don't either.

Roscivs thought that most folks should work out a personal definition of being rich. For him, it was I can buy any food I want. He declared himself rich.
   A good "personal definition" is one that could actually apply to the person who makes it. Being rich is a location, not a horizon. Even if one's not there now, one (theoretically) could get there.
   (If you've already attained it when you define it, all the better for you!)
   I believe this outlook is key in a healthy concept of "rich". Beware of changing the goalposts: If every time your cup is about to o'erflow you make your cup bigger (SuperSize Me!) you're in for a life of ingratitude and greed. Maybe that doesn't sound so bad to you, but it sounds bad to me.

Gratitude improves quality of life more powerfully than pretty much anything else.
   I submit that greed detracts from one's capacity to enjoy and the capacity to be satisfied. And obviously(?) I value those.

While I've struggled a lot with feeling poor since Roscivs died, I've refused to be the Red Queen when it comes to being rich. I've fought to maintain the mindset that rich is a location and not a horizon.
   It was somewhere I had been.
   Maybe I could go there again.

I just wanted to say, I'm back. I'm here. I'm dirt rich!