"David Gerrold - The Man Who Folded Himself" - читать интересную книгу автора (Gerrold David)

Okay, this is it. At least this is todayтАЩs answer:
There's a point beyond which money is redundant.
 This is not something I discovered just this week.
I've suspected it for a long time.
Five hundred dollars a week "spending money"
(тАФlike what else are you going to do with it?тАФ) gives a
person a considerable amount of freedom to do whatever
he wants. Within limits, of courseтАФbut those limits are
wide enough to be not very restricting. Increase them to
two thousand dollars a week and you don't feel them at
all. The difference isn't that much. Not really.
Okay, so I bought some new clothes and records and
a couple of other fancy toys I'd had my eye on, but I'd
already gotten used to having as much money as I'd
needed (or wanted), so having that much more in my
pocket didn't make that much more difference.
I just had to start wearing bigger pockets, that's all.
WellтАФ
I like to travel too. Usually, about once or twice a
month I'd fly up to San Francisco for the weekend, or
something like that. Palm Springs, Santa Barbara, New-
port, San Diego. Follow the sun, that's me.
Since Uncle Jim increased my allowance, I've been
to Acapulco, New York, and the Grand Bahamas. And
I'm thinking about Europe. But it's not all that fun to
travel aloneтАФand nobody I know can afford to come
along with me.
So I find I'm staying home just as much as before.
I could buy things if I wantedтАФbut I've never cared
much about owning things. They need to be dusted. Be-
sides, I have what I need.
Hell, I have what I wantтАФand that's a lot more than
what I need. I have everything I want now.
Big deal.
I think it's a bore.

***


So that's what Uncle Jim wanted to teach me.
Money isn't everything. In fact, it isn't anything. It's just
paper and metal that we trade for other things.
I knew that already; but it's one thing to know it
theoretically; itтАЩs another thing to know it from experi-
ence.
Okay. So, if money isn't anything, what is?

** *