When I was still in Muscat, one day I was sitting with my boss while he was indulging in his favourite pasttime - checking his investments online.
"Tell me," I asked him, "What would you do if one day all the screens showed up blank?"
He stared at me for some time, then laughed, as if I had cracked a joke. But I had not.
I had always believed wealth to be fictional and economics an intellectual convenience of ours. A couple of books that I read recently, written by Israeli historian Harare, confimed and crystallised my thoughts that 80% of the time, we are all living in fictional realities, eg that of wealth. The plus side of this belief in fictional realities is that it is these common beliefs that have enabled mankind to co-operate and develop so rapidly; and the minus side is - that it is fiction. If we do not take a reality check, we will be leading unreal lives, without realising that we are doing so.
Consider wealth, my favourite subject. Belief in this fiction is based on faith. Faith that the bankers' screens won't go blank. Faith that the piece of paper in my purse will be accepted in a shop (demonitisation made us realise how fictional money is). Faith that the car and house that I supposedly own, legalised (another fiction) by a stamp paper, won't be suddenly used by someone else, forcing me to take judicial help (another fiction).
What is my real wealth? What is it that stays with me throughout my mortal life and grows or suffers with every action of mine? One is, of course, my body, so integrally is it tied to my mortal existence. The other is my mind, which is linked to my body and gives it the direction to act. So if at all there is something that can make me irreversibily wealthy, it is a healthier body and a mind that takes decisions in its favour and in favour of those we come in contact with.
For me, the lockdown provided a much-needed reality check. This was a time when wealth, even if present in its fictional avatar, showed its limitations in adding to my happiness, through the usual means of consumption - like dining out, PVRs, foreign travel and parties. The lockdown made me free to take a look at my real personal wealth - a disease-free body and a prejudice-free mind. That's all one needs.
Stay healthy. Stay humble. Every other aim only serves common fictional realities.
