It’s raining! I woke up this morning and it was raining, not a startling fact in itself but for a brief instant my life flashed up strong as if viewable on a giant TV screen on the ceiling above my head! It’s raining, it’s 7.30am, my wife and baby are asleep beside me and I have everything that I or anybody else could possibly want in life.
In fact a large purplish stamp should be embedded upon my forehead that reads “this man is satisfied”!
I have a brand new high capacity MP3 player to play the thousands of songs that I have downloaded from the web on my super duper new self-built computer, with the flat screen panel that is just so cool! We have our dream cars parked in our garage below, the kitchen is being remodeled next week and we have a holiday home in Spain! I am fit, healthy and good looking, promotion at work is on its way and the enormous salary raise will ensure that my bank manager offers me coffee and biscuits when I visit.
Yet it’s raining outside!
As I look at my son, his face so innocent and pure; as I look at my beautiful wife who brought this magical being into the world I can hear ever stronger the pitter patter of the rain as it lands on the roof above! As I look at my family I can no longer see the material possessions and wealth that I have accumulated over the years, they have no place and no meaning; not right here, not right now!
Take away my possessions and give to me a gramophone, a bicycle and a coal fire! Take away my computer; a game of monopoly will fill that gap. I don’t need promotion, my bank manager is an idiot and coffee is bad for the health. Take away everything I have in material wealth, everything that I need and want is here in this bed with me. Take away all of those plastic beeping and flashing machines that mean so little when I have the most wonderful of feelings imaginable, that of love! That is all I need!
It has stopped raining now, somebody has turned off that giant TV screen that was only moments ago hovering over the bed! The sun is shining in the sky, the radio has come on with some gentle morning music and the auto start percolator in the kitchen is sending fresh smells of coffee wafting up the stairs. It has stopped raining and normality has returned, with it has come sense and sensibility, understanding that unless I keep up with the world I will never be able to give my son the future that he deserves! I have to be the same as everyone else outside in the big wide world. I have to be fashionable and trendy, to have what others have and not to be an outcast or to fall by the wayside.
Soon my son will start to crawl. Then he will walk. Then he will want to be fashionable, to fit in and be like all the other children of his age! He will want to have beeping and squeaking toys; he’ll need to be connected, to have an email address and to have the latest Nokia phone at his side. He’ll scream unless he can wear baggy trousers that seem so ugly yet are so ‘in’, he will cry unless he can have a game boy, watch TV, listen to his MP3 and he will want all that is at the height of fashionable materialism of those his age!
It has stopped raining and I have everything. I have a wonderful family whom I love with my heart and my soul. But I also have the latest in digital technology, membership at the smartest health club in town, a motorbike of mean proportions and a gardener to do the weeding! I also have a ten speed lawnmower (the next door neighbor still has the older 8 speed model) a pension fund and a platinum American express card!!
My wife hates Monopoly anyway!
About the Author
Author and Webmaster of Seamania. As a Chief Engineer in the Merchant Navy he has sailed the world for fifteen years. Now living in Taiwan he writes about cultures across the globe and life as he sees it.