On Fine Things

You tell me of all the fine things in your life: your Pinterest boards, the aspirations of your home; your incredible home, intricately adorned with fine fabrics and woods; your car, providing a luxurious ride to work; and your job, as a member of the managerial class.

These fine things provide you immense joy, and no doubt exists in my mind regarding that. Your work, a grinding ascent into the heavens, provide you currency to curate and buy those other fine things. Not only are you recognized and promoted as someone exceptional, the toil of your labor enables the agonizing curation of the fine life, one marked by abundance.

But tell me, if the gods were to devour your abundance itself, what would remain? If the only remains in the rubble were despair, grief, or anger, then I know this without a doubt in my mind: your life of fine things lacks a single good thing.

The good things are immaterial: your mind, your will, your unbreakable love for this world and its inhabitants. These immaterial things can never be subject to force. Even if a robber were to execute you in your home, he will never erase your determination from the record of human existence. It is beyond his grasp, yet uniquely always in yours.

We find that a life at mercy to the will of gods, to fortune, is one marked by the magnets of material things. You wear material things like a dog with a shock collar, always bound to roam only a small portion of this realm because you are tamed. You walk upwards towards the immaterial goods, yet find yourself pulled down by the force of your fine things.

A life bound by the gravity of fine things is just slavery wearing the mask of achievement.

I am reminded of this quote from Antisthenes:

πρὸς τὸν ἐπαινοῦντα τρυφήν, 'ἐχθρῶν παῖδες,' ἔφη, 'τρυφήσειαν.

"Let the children of my enemies live in luxury."