An interesting chain of thought.

1. I saw a tweet by Fred Benenson about the Streisand Effect which I had never heard of.

2. So I looked it up.

3. Decided to participate, so I tweeted a link to the page.

4. Got a tweet from Sonal Chokshi saying that Streisand has a shopping mall with all her collections, in the basement of the house.

5. I thought about being rich. I couldn't imagine that shopping mall really made Streisand feel good. But I imagined that a poor person could dream that it might. I tweeted to that effect.

That led me to another train of thought that I didn't blog.

I have opinions about what money does to people because I have been lucky enough to have money do it to me. Having money is nice, but not nearly as nice as poor people (which I have also been) imagine it is. But then I wondered how other people deal with money, and I wondered if they all reach this conclusion.

Now, I'm sure I'm right that money doesn't buy happiness, but when you first get that message, what's your response? I think perhaps some people go into denial, and insist that it must.

What led me to that was a piece I read last week about a guy who, like me, never stopped programming. He had a theory why people think that's unusual. Because being in charge of programmers has more status than being one. The more you are in charge of, the more status. It isn't the quality of the work that matters, it's the size of the subservience.

It's funny because I never felt this way! And of course since I didn't feel this way, it didn't occur to me that others did.

I always thought the greatest gift was to be able to do stuff yourself, without having to do it through others. It was the act of creating that was the priviledge. If you had a choice between being a player or a coach, wouldn't everyone choose to be a player? I guess not.

Mitt Romney is a symbol of this for me. It didn't occur to him, I guess, that we wouldn't love him. If we don't love him, then what was the point of making all that money? I think a lot of rich people never put that to the test, and go through life assuming that they are loved for their money. This explains, imho, a lot of the behavior I see. Being rich seems to equate to "behaving badly."

Another person who helped put this together for me is Frank Langella, in the Fresh Air interview that ran this week. He recounts what age does to you. And how actors deal with it, or don't. It was both rich and chilling. And a good perspective for anyone who gives money or fame too much credit for giving meaning or happiness to life.

Time for a walk! :-)