The Paradox of Abundant Living in A Scarce World
Issue #11 October 21st 2019
“A conversation is a dialogue, not a monologue. That's why there are so few good conversations: due to scarcity, two intelligent talkers seldom meet.” ~Truman Capote
I spend a lot of time talking throughout the day and also a lot of time listening, consuming, and trying to “think”. It is probably why the quote above by Capote stood out to me as something to kick off this Monday’s issue.
When it comes to living a wealthy life we often find ourselves running into the law of polarity as it relates to focusing on either the abundant or scarcity side of reality. In the Upanishads, (ancient Hindu sacred treatises that were written in Sanskrit between 800-200 B.C.) it was said that,
“From abundance, he took abundance, and still abundance remained.” ~The Upanishads
Juxtapose this sacred truth with the physical reality that 2000 to 2500 years later India under British rule was hit by recurrent famine from 1760 AD to till 1943 AD, and you have a true example of scarcity. As per British sources, there were more than 85 million Indians who died in these famines which were in reality genocides done by the British Raj. (source)
Are we then to believe that scarcity is merely a manufactured reality of our human condition used for political, economic, or other gains? Or is scarcity something far more ‘real’? When we look for answers we can find plenty of support for scarcity around us. For instance, through physics, we can always seem to find ways to manufacture more electricity, but we can’t manufacture more time.
It got me to thinking. Is the concept of time actually the culprit of our daily battle with trying to feel or live abundant in a scarce material world, or is it the reason we are even aware of the existence of these two polarities?
Every human has 24 hours to work within each day, with no idea how many days or hours they have left on this human experience. Time is a truly scarce resource, but is time an illusion or real or both?
I am becoming more and more aware that abundance and scarcity and our experience of both have a lot to do with how we organize our minds and understanding around the science and physics of time. These videos below with Sean Carroll and Huw Price are a great way to invest 11 minutes in building your cognitive wealth and subjective perspective today.
Enjoy and I welcome you to invite me to a good conversation around this monologue.