Let me count the ways:
My kids are better than me. What’s the good of a load of money to spend on private schools and giving your kids every advantage, if you still end up thinking you’re better than them? “None of the plaintiffs (her children) has the requisite capacity or skill, nor the knowledge, experience, judgment or responsible work ethic to administer a trust”. I think my kids are amazing.
I get to be a grandma. In a few weeks my first grandchild will be born and I’m a tad overexcited. Poor Gina doesn’t get to play with her grandkids. Doesn’t get to tell them stories and bake them cakes and take them mulberry picking and have those conversations that become immortal, even if you aren’t.
I get to be a grandma together with a grandpa, who I know doesn’t love me for my money!
I produce. I do work that I believe in, that makes the world just a tiny bit better, another kind of immortality.
I like my odds for living longer. I have a dodgy knee and a shoulder that I broke some years ago and skin that has seen too much sun and bad genes for heart attacks, but still I like my odds a lot better. A bit of physical work in a life is a very good thing.
I have a lot more security. Come the zombocalypse I have a fair range of survive and thrive skills. I can grow food, build a house, cook, clean, fish, patch up wounds, kill and pluck a chook, start or put out a fire, get together with my neighbours and make a plan. There’s a lot to be said for working class experience.
I go to better parties. I even put on better parties. When you want to let your hair down, you want to be amongst people who accept you as you are, even when you dance like a dork.
I eat a lot better. Which is what set me off on this train of thought. Fresh pawpaw straight off the tree and garden strawberries for breakfast, with home-made macadamia granola and yoghurt. Pawpaw doesn’t travel at all well, and tree ripened all the way is so superb I caught myself thinking, you couldn’t buy this even if you were Gina.
You nailed it Linda! Gina is poor, so poor she hasn’t a clue on what she is missing. You can only have so many gold-plated taps and limos. Love is what counts. Giving is what counts – I doubt she’s given much to charity her whole life, a philanthropist she is not. Knowing people love you for who you are and not pay lip service to your dollars is riches beyond the dreams of avarice.
great post 🙂
Well said. I have no envy of the rich and famous.
I don’t know who Gina is but she doesn’t sound like my kinda gal!
Hi Linda,
I read your blog often – thanks for sharing your knowledge and insights.
A few years ago I read your book and changed my thinking about plants, food, pests, waste and everything connected to those (which is everything!)
I think “Passing it on” is one of the principles of permaculture? You are doing a great job! I am growing veggies in my backyard (no chooks… yet!)
Many thanks.
I love your train of thought.
Now I’m off baking sourdough pancakes for my loved ones!
So very true Linda.
To be rich in experience and love is true wealth. I also think knowledge is the perfect wealth creator; when you give it away, you still have it.
This was wonderful – thank you. Also very good to know where we can go for patch up wound skills come the zombocalypse 🙂
Hi Pat, she’s an Australian and the world’s richest woman, all from royalties on inherited mining leases. But she reminds me of nothing more than Jabba the Hutt, in appearance and politics. She’s currently involved in a long running legal battle with 3 of her 4 kids.
Good luck to Gina, she may have all the money in the world, but money doesn’t buy you happiness!
Congrats on becoming a grandma soon!! What an exciting time for you and your familyxx
What a really cool post!!
You just made me feel like the richest , happiest woman in the world.
Linda you have a wonderful blog, so thank you for that. But I am sorry to say that I thought your comments, likening Gina Rinehart to Jabba the Hutt, unworthy and a little cruel. You have so much to give…
Hi Chris, I’m not sure. One part of me says to be kind, even to people as ruthlessly unethical in their dealings as she is. Another part of me says that evil should be named as such. The looks reference you’re right, is not good and I should know better given the really vicious name-calling that Tim Flannery is being subjected to. But the politics reference I think I am willing to stand by. The Galilee coal mining projects in Queensland in particular are the product of greed and a desire for domination of Hutt-esque proportions and I think we need to recognise that – that there is nothing about jobs or economic benefits or energy security driving it – just naked greed.
Thanks Linda. No doubt about it, we do need to recognise what’s happening and throw our support behind people like Tim – people with vision and the guts to do what’s right (which, for the next three years at least, will be against the prevailing mindset you talk about so eloquently).