About Being Rich

Isn't our obsession to become rich essentially biological? Probably, death by starvation has been prehistorically a dominant reason for deaths of members of our species. And therefore, it has probably entrenched such a deep rooted fear, essentially genetic, in us for starvation that we wish to push it as far away from ourselves as possible. Probably, so far away that it can't affect any of our progeny, leave alone us.

But if you were to think logically, isn't it such a waste of effort to try to be endlessly richer and richer? We live in a chaotic world where there exist such possibilities as could wipe us out of existence in no time: diseases, accidents, wars, natural calamities. Yet, we struggle and struggle to diminish the unlikely possibility of starvation to more and more minuscule proportions than ever!  We never stop for a moment to think how bloated our perception of this exceedingly minute probability of starvation, and of our ability to prevent it from touching our n-th generation by mere accumulation of material resources, is.

The auxiliary aspects that associate the sense of power, sexual attractiveness, and status to being rich are also seemingly fallouts of the same prehistoric notion where hoarding more and more resources was the only way to ward off starvation. We are not only biologically driven to try and be richer and richer, but are also prisoners of our instinct to idolise those who have more money. This re-inforces our primitive obsession for more and more money, and gives it this power which more or less defines how our society is today.

The instinct which drives us to the obsession to hoarde money is probably rooted in ancient forms of adaptation, but is probably completely inapplicable in the present conditions. Surprisingly, the above very biologically driven thing is perpetrated by those who, on the face, are the most clever and designing ones!

Such puppets we are to our biology! Really fascinating!