Delirium of materialism

Why is wealth both an intoxicant and a depressant? Why is affluence a tragedy of our world today that it is the undoing of the children of the wealthy causing them pain and anguish in what they should ordinarily glory in?

Since wealth is a denominator of existential sustainability, man in such culture becomes of least importance or significance, a nonentity if he cannot assure his own material independence because if man must survive, he must exist tangibly, qualitatively.  He must meet his existential obligations or needs to be accorded dignity and acclaim of success, needs that theorist Abraham Maslow has neatly categorized as basic needs, social needs, esteem needs and self-actualisation.

It is in the quest or search for the attainment of wealth that man is caught in a flux or dilemma between capacity, endowment, talents and what he achieves in material terms, wealth. Man has unequal endowments but regardless of capacity or endowment, wealth is the desire of all.

For instance, a Yoruba parlance says Owo lo n se nnkangbogbo, that is, money solves all problems. So, we are not strange to sayings like he who suffers material impoverishment is not a living soul. There is virtually no musician of note that his not dedicated generous time to wealth in their composition and even video clips are awash with celebration of wealth with naira shower or rain, mindboggling automobiles and jaw dropping mansions that you cannot but long to own them in the shortest time possible even without going through the grill or drill of hard work. But is there any short cut to wealth? I have come across a scriptural verse that says money (wealth) is the root of all evils as much as the Quran has described wealth as trial for man.

The need to arrive, achieve, succeed, sustain, build or come by wealth unfortunately is the bane of the tranquility of many. In societies where wealth is taken as an end or as a god and religiously worshipped, there is bound to be crazy competition and there is of cause the tendency for all competitors to be manipulative.

This is the nexus of the prevailing corruption in our system. This is the reason behind the get-rich-quick syndrome that turns youngsters to fraudsters, breeds fake clerics and miracle workers as ritual killers, forces well educated men to armed robbery, and it explains why some women of noble pedigree turn to prostitution

So, I come to a realization that those who come to their wealth by clean and honest means are the ones who are free from the paradox of wealth as a prison. They are not slaves to wealth. They are not threatened by fear of its loss or diminution. They spend it freely on righteous and noble causes.

I am led to a believe that he is not truly a wealthy man who lacks character he is intellectually impoverished, spiritually and emotionally bankrupt.

Abdulwarees Solanke

korewarith@yahoo.com