The movers and shakers, the influencers and the powerful–the successful. The attainment of fame, wealth, or social status that would likely transition to position of influence and ultimately of control. It all sounds well and good on the surface but there is a hidden cost to be this success. And it’ll become apparent once you equate this success with sharing a pie with others, like with friends or family. Yes you read it right, eating pie. Wherein if you take more slices, the others are left with less.
It’s a zero-sum game, where if you win, others lose. And just what exactly does this have to do with wealth, social status and power. Well think about where the aforementioned come from or rather who you take it from. When you become wealthier somebody else becomes poorer cause the resource for that wealth is finite, like the pie. For example, the more land you have, the lesser there is for others to share. A finite resource that gets lesser and lesser will mean there’s fewer and fewer to share. This happens when you take more and more or when there are more and more to partake in that resource.
So the next time you see someone having a cardboard for a bed on the street or when you find yourself having a more and more elevated sense of self-worth(a vip) or when you see people marching down streets in protest, that’s when you know you’re part of a community that is neck-deep in playing a zero-sum game.
Poverty is not the lack of, but an imbalance in the distribution of a community’s resources. Being poor is about not having enough share, whether its about possessions, social standing and even power because others have taken too much.
Our emotions dictate what we value which in turn forms our values. For example, if you are happier spending your resources on a shiny rock instead of something meaningful for your needing neighbor, then that is reflective of the values you hold. This means you give more emphasis on your social status and playing the zero-sum game. And the community’s predominant values that arises becomes the it’s identity, how we are seen as a people.
We are a reflection of what we do for the things we desire which we believe to be good; and be known for the things we eventually create and destroy.
In connection, a community that weighs the importance of an individual in a situational manner is role-centric, and is opposite that of a status-centric community. For example, a very important person(vip) when you’re on a bus that’s stalled on the road in the middle of nowhere is the mechanic and not the lawyer that’s sitting beside you. Well, a lawyer wouldn’t probably be riding a bus but you get the point.
On a side note, which of these two situations do you think would you be worse off. Is it when politicians don't exists or is it when farmers don't?
If you would indulge me further, I'd like to add that politics is something we should all be involved in but not be made into a career. For what it's worth.