The Virtue of Ordinary Life and the False Dream of Riches
This essay’s topic might be unprecedentedly close to my life, and maybe to our life. Previously, on the Kompasiana website, I have discussed the effects of the decline of the world economy during this pandemic on the human ability to meet their basic needs. In this time of crisis, the topics of economics and survival have become very relevant. Therefore, discussions about daily life seem to be very interesting. There are three reasons that brought this essay to the public domain. First, lately, many business and motivational seminar programs have emerged and present ways to ‘get money’ and ‘get rich’. These seminars were delivered by motivators or entrepreneurs who claimed to be successful in managing their finances. Based on that success, they wanted to share the ‘recipe or ways to gain riches’ which they claimed identical to ‘success’. Second, I watched the capitalistic economy revolve around me through the business ventures of my maternal family. Therefore, made me a first-hand witness of the running of capitalism. Third, my choice to become a historian even though I came from a business family background often brings along questions about why I chose pure science over studying economics and law. These questions lead me to give a logical answer to everyone’s curiosity.
In the essay I published at Kompasiana a few weeks ago, I stressed that our inability to meet our daily needs amid this pandemic was caused by the lack of individual ability to produce food and the influence of our tastes in accordance with the global market. Both actually have one same root cause, which is ‘false dream of riches’. I don’t have the authority to talk about the whole world, but at least I can diagnose this kind of disease in Indonesia. With the spread of motivational seminars about ‘getting rich’ complete with a large audience, we can conclude that many people are interested in the idea of ‘getting rich’. One’s success today in Indonesia is measured by their ability to make money. This kind of dream is a very dangerous idea.
The dream of ‘getting rich’ and ‘making money’ has now crystallized into a social construction. Therefore, the dream is no longer a personal aspiration, but also social pressure. I do not mind if someone really –from one’s heart, wants to become rich. However, the most common case is that this desire unconsciously originates from social constructions that affect human mindset from an early age. Why is the dream to ‘get rich’ unhealthy? The first answer to that question is the actions the dream brings about. In order to ‘get rich’, people will work in and maybe establish a business or company. If someone works with the aim of becoming rich, he will not realize his true dream. The problem arising from being rich is the absence of the differences of ‘basic needs’ from others in general. Wealth status makes a person spend more than his needs and become more exploitative. This will ultimately lead to unnecessary exploitation efforts. We must not forget that by creating a diversification of products, we also create goods that may not be really needed by people. On the other hand, we are also involved in the exploitation of humans and nature in order to make or provide products that are not actually essential. Reflecting from that, does not the attempt to become rich only exhausting nature?
This dream of becoming rich does not come out of nowhere, we see a large system that depicts the picture of luxury and privilege for people who have a large sum of money. This, in turn, contributes to making people fall deeper into poverty, both perceptively and in real terms. Perceptively poor in the sense of making one’s daily lifestyle seems to become worthless because there is a far more luxurious lifestyle. Meanwhile, sometimes it also makes a person poor in real terms because it encourages them to spend their resources to afford those luxurious products. However, of course, becoming rich is not a sin or a mistake. These aspirations only become worthless if they are driven by social construction and not by our personal desires –because we exploit nature and humans merely to satisfy the social structure around us, not our needs.
Now, comes the question of what I have to offer to replace the false dream of riches? Actually, I don’t offer any more dreams. The only way to wake up from that false dream ‘to become rich’ is everyday life, ordinary life. Nowadays, we tend to take our eyes off our daily lives and ordinary standard of living. In fact, our ordinary standard of living actually has no problems at all. People who choose to eat in a small depot (small restaurant) or at home every day are no lower than people who choose to eat in fancy restaurants and use luxury cars –because there is no difference in both, in terms of the will of ‘survival’. They both meet their daily needs. The real difference between them is that one feeds one’s community, while the other feeds the wheels of capitalism. Of course, humans have complete freedom to choose which one of those two they wanted to be. However, the dream of ‘riches’ constructed by the social structure will be exhausting both the pursuer and the nature surrounding him/her. People who pursue that dream in today’s reality cannot find riches outside the system of capitalism –and the hope of winning in that system is very small. The knowledge taught by business motivational gurus in no way guarantees a person to penetrate the capitalistic system. The only certainty that you get from these useless classes is that your gurus’ pockets are getting fatter by the cost of your registration. In a selfish capitalistic system, how can you expect that someone will let you into the system and compete with them fairly?
These false dreams of riches have guided many people to the wrong choices. Many people I know have fallen into some ‘too profitable’ business models and lost an extraordinarily large amount of money. However, the false dream was still attached to their brain. The opium of ‘getting rich’ mixed with a high lifestyle that cannot be downgraded resulted in a prolonged false dream –and prevent people from getting out of the trap. Then, what does this have to do with my choice of becoming a historian? History provides many interesting examples of the eerie effects of capitalism and these false dreams. At first, European colonialism that followed the Age of Discovery was one of the effects of the ‘get rich’ dream. After that, many kinds of exploitation of humans, animals, and nature were carried out in the name of profit. At this point, many might assume that I support the opposite idea of capitalism, like the ideas of Marx and its branches. I cannot fully state that I am in favour of that side of the ideas. Many dark historical events have also taken place in the name of Marx’s ideas, but the victims of that could be counted by historians. However, the victims of capitalism are very difficult to calculate because often the system is not realized. I think that the victims of capitalists’ exploitation could exceed the number of victims under the banner of Marxism.
However, aside from Marx’s ideas, the ideas that are endemic to Indonesia are ‘ordinary life’ ideas. Society’s ideas to support themselves and protect nature were seen from a variety of thoughts and lifestyle of the indigenous people of the archipelago. A good example can be seen within the Javanese society before 1830. In 2018, I once made an essay –now in the process of publication by the History Program of the Universitas Indonesia, titled “Lelembut dan Gagalnya Kapitalisme Jawa (Ghosts and the Failure of Capitalism in Java)”. I discussed how the oral traditions of Javanese people were both the causes and indicators of the failure of capitalism in Java. Another interesting fact is that the standard of living of Javanese people who did not implement capitalism was not lower than European societies which were at the beginning of capitalist economic development. The Javanese standard of living fell immediately after 1830 –after capitalism was indirectly introduced. Ordinary life should not be seen as inferior to the life of a rich person. Ordinary life is an aspect that is not easy to handle. With this essay, I am not calling for you to abandon your dream of becoming rich. I am only asking these two questions; can you get rich without overexploiting humans and nature? And getting rich while creating a sustainable scheme for nature? If you have that dream, you must be able to answer my questions with ‘yes’, because the people who will live on earth for hundreds of years later are not you, but a new generation. I chose to become a historian because I refused to actively involve in an exploitative system against poor people and nature.
