A Rich Life
“When you regain a sense of your life as a journey of discovery, you return to rhythm with yourself. Moments of beauty begin to braid your days.” John O'Donohue
Art by Laivi Pôder
Last night, as I walked the dogs, I watched the orangish-yellow moon disappear and reappear, disappear then reappear from behind the clouds as if it was a young child playing a game. I spot it through the dark limbs of the oak trees as I walk with the dogs. After a very hot and humid Southern summer day, the slight breeze makes the night almost bearable for walks. A chorus of cicadas can be heard joining a choir of frogs in my neighbor’s pond. As I walk, I reflect on a question I have been thinking about for days: What makes a rich life?
If you had asked me this question as a child, I would have told you that I was going to grow up and become so wealthy that I was going to own a home like the Biltmore House in Asheville and my family, including grandparents, were going to come and live with me, each with their own wing. I had no concept of the amount of wealth it would take in such a modern age to both build and keep up such an estate. Of course, I was also convinced that I was going to dig up and find Blackbeard’s buried treasure at the Outer Banks. Me with my plastic pail and shovel digging fruitlessly but with determination that this summer would be the one. Then, at some point, my parents gave up the quiet of the Outer Banks for the amusement-park like nature of Myrtle Beach. Gone, too, was my chance of finding Blackbeard’s gold.
The older I get, the more I realize that I don’t need the manufactured moments of an amusement park life filled with endless distractions. I’m not sure children do, either, because, more often than not, if a child who has returned from a trip to Disney World is asked what their favorite of their trip, they typically respond with, “The pool.” And, if one watches the adults at Disney, more often than not, despite this being the so-called “Most magical place on Earth,” most of them are still on their smart phones. Even a place designed for endless distraction, it is not enough for many.
On Sunday, my wife and I tried a new coffee shop not far from my house. The aesthetic was not one that I appreciated - very sterile and lots of faux marble surfaces. I ordered my coffee and sat down. I did not take out my smart phone and start scrolling through social media. I have found myself longing for a life outside of algorithms all shaped to sell me something: an idea, a product, a brand, a political party. All of it based on the concept that I am missing out on something - that if my life had only (fill in the blank) it would be complete: I would have a more fulfilling, exciting, sexier and successful life.
As I sipped my coffee, I observed.
There were quite a few folks in this coffeeshop and the majority of them were either on their phones, their laptops or both. In a place meant for connection and community. Coffee shops go all the way back to the sixteenth century in the Ottoman Empire and then later in the seventeenth century Europe. They were created as open, democratic spaces where people sat together at long tables and had debates, conversations, and sharing news. The early Middle Eastern ones were known as the “Schools of the Wise” and were designed as hubs of culture. They had poetry readings and public discourse.
