By Madeleine KandoIt is said the effect of being too affluent is ‘soporific’. To have so little want of the basic things in life, like food, shelter and good health, that it seems a distant dream to have to do without those things. Some nations have at one time or another been exposed to the soporific effects of too much comfort. Other nations never had that luxury. (I doubt that a country like Haiti ever did suffer from a soporific mindset).
Countries that are affluent for an extended period of time start to take their level of comfort as the norm. The inhabitants of such nations remind me a lot of Flopsy Bunnies. They are overcome with slumber most of their lives. They wonder why other nations are poor. ‘What are we doing right?’ they ask themselves. ‘What are they doing wrong?’ Thus, being affluent creates a lot of hot air, like gas bubbles rising to the surface of a soup.
Flopsy Bunny nations love to criticize. They like to think of themselves as very special. Their flopsy nature makes them prone to self-agrandisement and unless someone pinches them real hard (in the shape of a good old famine, an earthquake or a flood..) so that they wake up from their soporific slumber, they will never admit to just being pampered and plain lucky.
I didn’t know this until I decided to venture outside of MY flopsy bunny garden patch . I did this on a whim, mind you. I was a flopsy bunny myself. I liked the luxury of a soporific life style. Basking in the sun after a heavy meal of my favorite lettuce. Knowing that my Flopsy Bunny country would safely tuck me in at night. My Flopsy Bunny garden patch was my world and I did not want to venture into the rest of Mr. McGregor’s garden.
I had heard horror stories of bunnies disappearing there and put in a rabbit pie. Of bunnies getting sick and not being able to get health care because they couldn’t pay their doctor bills. Of bunnies going without lettuce because they had lost their patch, and no one there to take care of them.
‘Thank God I don’t live in Mr McGregor’s garden’ I thought. But I was also curious. Mr. McGregor’s garden sounded a lot more exciting than my Flopsy Bunny neighborhood. ‘What was wrong with just taking a peek?’ I told myself. So I did. I peeked. The more I peeked the more exciting it seemed to live there. Forget about the rabbit pie. I could outrun any old McGregor. So I packed my basket and my umbrella and squeezed under the garden gate.
I had some close brushes with disaster, like the time that I had to go on food stamps to buy lettuce. But on the whole, I never regretted my decision to leave my flopsy bunny nation. Mr McGregor’s garden turned out to be as exciting and expansive as I had imagined it. Moving there sure gave me some battle scars. But I am no longer a flopsy bunny and living the soporific life style of my youth would not fit me any more.
I do not begrudge flopsy bunnies their affluence. More power to them. But they are confusing luck with superiority and their tendency to lecture the less affluent is what I abhor. leave comment here