Stamps
As a little boy I was collecting stamps. On the schoolyard we got into conversation and intended to visit a mate who had a big collection. We visited him.
We stepped into his small room. Bare walls without wallpaper. Here and there in the corners and on the floor scattered stamps, a little table at the old window, and on the shelves folders with thousands of first-day covers and other stamps, finely filed, a world for itself. Now he intended to sell them for 20000 marks and stop collecting. I was dismayed.
Had I thought of myself, in this dilettantish way, ever to be able to move something thru stamps? These few hundred stamps I had seemed like complete scorn. Man, how stupid I was!
That oddball, who obviously hadn’t understood the meaning of life, was at least so clever that he concentrated so intensely and so long on a thing until it was done. Then he ticked it off - and took the money.
If I ever wanted to reach something in life, I had to concentrate fully on one thing alone. Furthermore, I had to take account of two important things: Life is short, and there is stiff competition. What should I do? What could I do in reasonable time? And before all other things: What was really important? So I came upon the meaning of life.
Should I sacrifice my short life to a banal, material proposition? It seemed reasonable to work on my mind. But first I tried to sell the stamps. I went to the dealer, but he refused to buy. And then I understood. Everybody wanted to sell and cash in; nobody was interested in buying. The price catalogs were only mock. One was led to believe in a world which simply didn’t exist. I was the fool; I was living in a mock world fabricated by the greedy.
Isn’t it peculiar that a millionaire has usually started out as a simple worker? Haven’t they swindled, won, or inherited? And every year there are several hundred lottery millionaires but just a handful of good bodybuilders. If all the lottery millionaires stood in front of me and claimed they had meditated on the numbers, then would start a nightmare. Can they meditate better than me? Am I the last fool who doesn’t find another fool whom he can clean out? That’s all statistics. I have ascertained that even known billionaires have just statistical fortune. From a statistical point of view, the number of billionaires ought to be higher. Some have the banal luck to be floated to the surface. If thousand entrepreneurs try the same, just one survives; he gives thanks to his cleverness only. Sure, stupidness alone doesn’t survive. Were all the others stupid? It’s just statistics saying a certain percentage floats right at the top. It’s time to understand these things. Don’t believe in your chance when you have no chance. That is claimed by the greedy ones wanting you to work for them. Don’t you notice how they laugh at you. Oh, you thought they smiled. - You have no fortune, must go, must die.
You have luck? You are rich? - Not really.
Your chance is consciousness. Here you can have Godspeed. Here is rewarded every step. Long is the way; unrelenting hardship escorts you. Go the way.
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