Author Topic: Solomon's World View (Read 2850 times)

Olde Tymer · « **on:** January 12, 2019, 08:37:02 am »

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● Ecc 2:17 . . And so I loathed life. For I was distressed by all that goes on under the sun, because everything is futile and pursuit of wind.

The "loathing" Solomon felt wasn't hatred, but rather, just plain old cynicism born of disillusion. When you're young, life is exciting and promising: you're optimistic and ready to roll into the future full speed ahead. But as the years go by, life loses its luster and becomes a drag, and as we get ever older and more debilitated, life becomes something to just get through and get over with.

Just about the time you really get set in life, and have a few things figured out, and start to enjoy it, the aging process moves in to spoil your fun. One of my biggest gripes about life is that youth is wasted on the young. It's us oldsters who need youth, not the young because youngsters fritter away their youth on air-headed nonsense.

One morning on television, Kelly Rippa, of Live With Regis & Kelly, said her little boy was in a hurry to be older. He was only 5 then and wanted to skip the next two years and go straight to 7. See? That's what I'm saying. Kelly's boy was too young to appreciate how valuable youth is. He wanted to shed youth because in his immature mind, older is better.

It's not until our youth is gone that we can fully appreciate it's worth; but by then it's too late. In all of our young, self absorbed stupidity, we carelessly squander away the treasure of youth on meaningless pursuits and sometimes foolishly tempt fate in extreme sports because when we're young, it's all too easy to perceive ourselves suspended in some sort of time-stasis where we'll be forever 21. To our immature minds; older people appear to be born that way and we fail to comprehend that every time we encounter someone older, we are looking at our own futures.

"Time is the fire in which we burn."
Dr. Soran, Star Trek: Generations

● Ecc 2:18-21 . . So, too, I loathed all the wealth that I was gaining under the sun. For I shall leave it to the man who will succeed me-- and who knows whether he will be wise or foolish?-- and he will control all the wealth that I gained by toil and wisdom under the sun. That too is futile. And so I came to view with despair all the gains I had made under the sun. For sometimes a person whose fortune was made with wisdom, knowledge, and skill must hand it on to be the portion of somebody who did not toil for it. That too is futile, and a grave evil.

It's bad enough that the wealthy have to leave their fortunes behind, but even worse when foolish relatives end up with it and fail to appreciate the toil and conscientious effort put into accumulating that wealth and the vigilance required to keep it. The dumb ones start living it up, not taking into consideration that money spent is money gone forever. What will be left for the next generation if the first wastes the primary inheritance and fails to invest for the future?

Some people try to write their wills and trusts in such a way that their estates can't be wasted; but don't always succeed. In spite of the instruction and good example they may give, fathers and mothers have no way of knowing what their posterity will do with the wealth and property they worked so hard to accumulate during their lives.

● Ecc 2:22-23 . . For what does a man get for all the toiling and worrying he does under the sun? All his days his thoughts are grief and heartache, and even at night his mind has no respite. That too is futile!

One of the disadvantages of striving to gain wealth is the sleep that's sometimes lost over it. Solomon observed that a rich man's abundance won't permit him to sleep (Ecc 5:12) for example: Michael Jackson and Elvis Presley, the most popular youth-oriented male singers ever to record music, shared a common malady: both had trouble sleeping. In contrast, I'm an obscure retired welder whose wife complains falls asleep too easily. Well, the difference is, I have peace of mind; whereas those two guys didn't.

"People who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge men into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs." (1Tim 6:9-10)

Managing an empire is no picnic. There's long hours, employee disputes, tax problems, investment risks, OSHA, EPA, legal hassles, Federal interference, lawsuits, deadlines, time pressure, accounting errors, loan calls, and all that sort of thing; not to mention debt. Haw! debt is the the Grim Reaper for quite a number of mega businesses like the auto industry. Debt is what ultimately toppled the energy giant ENRON; wiping out 1.2 billion dollars in retirement funds, and 2 billion dollars in pension funds.

You know what else befalls empire-builders? Broken homes. Ray Kroc, the McDonald's mogul, was on his third marriage when he passed away. Jesus once said that you can't serve God and mammon. Well; you can't serve money and family either. Wealth-seekers generally serve the money and leave their families to more or less sink or swim.
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Author Topic: Solomon's World View (Read 2850 times)

Olde Tymer

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