What good is your money?

Khaleej Times (Life) / 23 February 2013

I was barely 12 when I wrote my first poem. It was titled, “What can money do?” Written at an age when I didn’t have a concrete notion of money in real, worldly terms, the poem was my first brush with words and wisdom.

I still cannot fathom what made me write about something that I had so little knowledge about— that is, the vacuous nature of wealth — but the poem became so popular in my immediate circle that it was published in my school magazine and circulated among relatives, who still consider it my best piece till date.

The poem could at best be defined as a rare occurrence of ideas that had nothing to do with what I was to become later in life. It was no indication of the values I would imbibe or the belief systems that would get indoctrinated in my adult life. It merely expressed a lofty thought that was beyond my years and experience.

The notion of wealth I had at that naïve age only got more tenuous as years passed by. Like many other things in life, it was difficult to put a post-it note on wealth as either a virtue or a vice. I found it difficult to dismiss it as superfluity, even as I realised that it wasn’t all that one existed for. Experience had taught that money was necessary to sustain physical and social life, but the ever-changing parameters of ‘need’ and ‘want’ distorted my views time and again. It was nearly impossible to spell the importance of wealth, more, its use and purpose beyond food, clothing and shelter.

For all the philosophical opinion we hold and disburse at will about materialism and its futility, I suspected if we could let go of our riches and relinquish our positions even if we made billions, if anyone who has built an empire by dint of his labour can give off a share without agonising over the attrition, however small; if we could ever say, ‘enough’ and gift the excess away. Soon, the squiggles in my head found answers in philanthropic anecdotes about some famous, rich people. The cosmos responds to our questions if we ask hard enough.

As if to endorse my newfound beliefs, I read about Warren Buffet gifting 600 million dollars worth of company stocks to his children on his birthday last year, not to add to their assets, but to run their charity. The man’s life and his mammoth proportions of wealth has always amazed me, but this time what transformed my perception of the super rich dad was the grand objective behind the transit of money. I found a new meaning and purpose to the act of bequeathing wealth to one’s offspring. The fact that the rich dad has rich kids who have more than enough to spare the millions for charity cannot take away from the spirit of the generous action. That they had the will to share was inspiring enough.

When Bill Gates recently said that he had no utility for money beyond a point, I wished I had the firm conviction, if not the wherewithal to say the same. I feel overwhelmed when I imagine that someday I would make such massive money to be able to say that, but should that happen by a quirk of fate, I wonder if my soul would expand in tandem to give a huge share away. It’s a daunting contemplation I would rather pass up now.

Today, my perception of wealth as merely a means to worldly comforts has altered. Being rich need not be a state of self-centered delusion that provides for materialistic variables alone. I am becoming increasingly aware that possessing wealth has many noble dimensions beyond the limited confines of personal use. It is a view that is so different from the one I had several years ago as an impressionable 12-year-old.