Money & Freedom

[China Doll]

Money buys freedom.

Does anyone disagree with this statement and why?

Cheers
China

[China Doll]

I'm not entirely convinced you can't buy love or happiness. However I will concede that you can't buy health or wellbeing. Although you certainly can have the best possible treatment.

It's like that old saying about madness. Something that if a poor person does it they're mad but if a rich person does it's eccentric. I forget where I heard that from.

Sally - That bloke in Titanic died in the end. And it was the rich bird that lobbed him off the blank of wood!

Kidding! I do see what you're saying. Maybe he did have a form of freedom. I dunno. Perhaps. It's a good example.

[Octavius]

Well of course you can buy love, especially if it�s the 10 minute sort you get from Dockyard Doris on a Friday night.

I can see a sort of resemblance in us CD, where I am the Jack to your Rose - especially the nude painting scene. You can�t buy happiness like that.

[China Doll]

I didn't mean that kind of love! Anyway, sex is not love. It's sex. Great fun but making love really is... well it's just sex with someone you love isn't it?! No real difference, just a bit more trust and some emotions shoved in there to make it more confusing. And indeed a whole other thread.

That was a happy moment Octavius. Or indeed a memory. Not a freedom. And besides, I prefer the car scene.

But I like the fact that in this example the rich lady seems to be the trapped one. I don't believe it for one minute as she was able to go off and fufill both their dreams which she wouldn't have been able to do if she could not afford it but it was a good try.

[brionon]

Hands off Dockyard Doris;she's providing a neccesary service.

[Octavius]

I hear she provides a very �hands on� service for the services.

[China Doll]

Doris and her services are bu99er all to do with anything m'dears.

But at least you're minds wandering shows you to be free up there even if her services down there aren't....

[Gromit]

Money can give you more options, but that does not necessarily mean freedom. It might just give you a different set of problems and dilemas to contend with.

And strangely enough, doing and getting exactly what you want will not necessarily make you happy or fulfilled.

[China Doll]

Why might that not leave you fufilled?

Surely that's just one of those namby pamby arguments like 'money doesn't matter' which those with money quote?

(I'm honestly not being argumentative but this is really what I think and I'm quite stubborn about it).

[Gromit]

You buy a house and you are happy. A couple of years later, you want a bigger house.

If you get what you want, you are briefly happy, but soon you want something else.

It is human nature.

[China Doll]

But if you can afford it then you have the freedom to make yourself happy? You choose to do what you want.

If you couldn't buy the house you'd be unhappy and feel trapped right?

I see what your saying... quantum of wantum I think is how my dad puts it, (he's currently refusing to say anything else on this subject as he thinks I'm turning in to a little right whinger). But if you can satisfy what you want at any give moment then it makes you happy and free. Or at least it seems that way to me.

[Gromit]

As I said, it gives you more options and it makes you happy briefly.

[China Doll]

As long as you're always free to do what you want you'll always be happy.

[Octavius]

While we are free to choose our actions, we are not free to choose the consequences of our actions.

[China Doll]

Well by that logic no one is quite free as we are always at the end of a set of actions, good or bad and not always our own.

I can go along with that probably.

[Octavius]

I was referring to your �being able to do what you want, you�ll always be happy� sentiment. Doing what you want may affect someone else�s freedoms, or lead to a dilution of your own struggle for constant happiness, which can only lead to constant dissatisfaction.

We can say that Vicky B � is pretty well able to do what she wants, but is she happy? It seems not, since she is finding it hard to be accepted in LA society, is a rubbish �singer� and denies the fake boob job, let alone that her husband slept with a pig-fiddling floozy, belittling her in a very public way. As I said, such freedom comes with a price.

A bit similar to Wayne, Colleen and Dockyard Doris.

[Gromit]

The head of one of the biggest banks in the world has spoken candidly of his battle against clinical depression.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml =/news/2007/10/25/ndepress125.xml

[China Doll]

I do see what you're both saying; honest, for once I'm really not playing devils adovate.

In fact I'm not too sure what I'm trying to get at anymore...

Ok....That bloke that Gromit put the link up for... I dunno, depression is an illness, as I said earlier regarding terminal illness you may not be able to cure it but you certainly can afford to recover in your own way. Take time off, vanish to India.. whatever. You average Joe Bloggs doesn't have that choice if they suffer the same thing.

Perhaps 'freedom' is the wrong word? Maybe it should be choice? I don't know... Incidently I really don't want the statement to be true as it physically upsets me.

[Octavius]

Are you not a happy wee bunny, my little China Doll ?

[China Doll]

I've never been a bunny and 5'6 I'm not exactly wee for a girl either!

But having spent most of the day thinking about the points raised in this disucssion I'm think the answer might well be 'nay' Octavius.