Mental Wealth
There are only two important projects in life. The first is securing your physical well-being. That means getting enough to eat and controlling your body temperature. For citizens of the EU, this is a given.
The second project is accumulating mental wealth. When you have mental wealth, no other kind matters.
Arguably, it is not in the interests of a materialistic society to promote the notion of mental wealth, so it is worth repeated explanation.
Mental wealth is not the accumulation of ideas or faith in ideas. It is rather the methods and means of processing ideas. The simplest definition of mental wealth is self-directed and frictionless thought. Can you think about what you want to thin about and can you do it without annoying yourself?
Having material wealth does not mean living in a house with every saucer, screw, and lamp you might possibly need. The materially wealthy live in clean spaces; they prefer to have around them only the things they immediately need, with the option, of course, of summoning new things.
Similarly, mental wealth is not the accumulation of all information that you might possibly need. It means having only information that you need for the decision currently before you, with the option of summoning more information if needed.
The implications are wide. It implies that if a schoolteacher in another district is conducting a steamy affair with a student, it is not information that you need, since there are no decisions you can make with it.
In a given situation, you are not surprised. You either know what to do, or you know how to get the information you need to decide, and you accept making decisions without full knowledge of your situation.
It is necessary to realise that having mental wealth is not like beatitude. It is not about being happy regardless of your circumstances. It is about estimating the goodness of information you have, how to induce information that you do not have, how to create back-up plans, and so on. When not faced with threats, your mental wealth can be a source of pleasure, and even ecstasy. In its self-referential form, it is the ability to harmonize the various streams of thought underlying consciousness into a drug-like euphoria. More on this, of course, later.
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