Frugality

                 Frugality is one of the most beautiful and joyful words in the English language, and yet one that we are culturally cut off from understanding and enjoying.The consumption society has made us feel that happiness lies in having things, and has failed to teach us the happiness of not having things.

    
         We must rapidly begin to shift from a "thing oriented" society to a "person oriented" society. When machines and computers profit motives and property rights are considered more impotant than people, the giant triplets of racism, materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.
                                                          ~Martin Luther King ~

      I find these images intriguing because at sometime someone treasured there existence, now discarded to stand the time of rust and neglect. I look at this heap of someone's discarded treasures and think for a couple of years there was satisfaction. Then something else came along to grab their "wants", and later on the same want finds a new "thing" and soon people are trapped, and the things they used to own now own them. This eventually brings unhappiness as things are only a momentary fix. Did you ever see an unhappy horse? Did you ever see a bird that had the blues? One reason birds and horses are not unhappy is they are not trying to impress other birds and horses. Our culture today, at least in the Western traditions, places much emphasis on impressing. Seeking perfection which  cannot be had, and looking for it where they will never find it. Economy, and a simple life are the sure masters of need, and will often accomplish that which their opposites, with a fortune at hand, will fail to do.