Heck, yeah! I would drop everything and travel the world with G. But, as someone who has no lottery ticket, and therefore no dog in this fight, I can feel free to offer some cultural commentary: I think winning the lottery could be one of the worst things to happen to someone. I don't think anything is wrong with money, or working for money, or having money - or even wanting money, in a lot of cases. Money lets you do a lot of good things. It lets you have a lot of good things and experiences, and if you so choose, it allows you to provide others with many good things.
But just from the amount of conversation and buzz around this lottery, I can see that it is affecting people. What I mean is that it has not even happened yet and already people are consumed by the possibility - as remote and far reaching as it may be - of winning such a sum. It's so intoxicating to think of how we would live our lives if we could get out from under these bills and financial expectations/obligations.
But I think the lottery is a Pandora's Box full of all kinds of troubles. The first thing to go is your anonymity; you become That Lottery Winner and then everyone feels entitled to know and pass judgment on your decisions involving this new wealth. Anonymity is a precious thing to me and I would hate to lose it, even for a lot of money. Loss of privacy brings all kinds of unsolicited expectations from people; they will come out of the woodwork demanding, flattery, cojoling, pressing in on you. People (unless they are blessedly close to you) will start to think differently of you because now you have money. And money is supposed to fix everything. Which means that you no longer have flaws or problems, and they can no longer relate to you. You aren't who you were, and your life will never be the same.
Unless they are incredibly grounded, people cannot seem to handle extreme fame or money (and mostly, these go hand in hand). It doesn't take long for things to unravel. It will be interesting to see what happens around these parts in the next few days.
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And on a completely unrelated note, we saw the Globe Theatre in London! It's actually the 3rd Globe Theatre. The original - the one where Shakespeare saw his plays performed - burned down. Another theatre was built on the same site a few years later, only to be destroyed by Puritans who opposed such base forms of entertainment. This theatre is located about five minutes from the location of the original and is built as close to the original design as they were able to make it. It is made from oak, carved by hand, and pegged together in the original format - no nails or modern tools of any kind were used. They say it is so sturdy that if you removed all the pegs holding the lumber together, the building would still stand.
The Globe Theatre is an active theater (operating April - October) and is extremely colorful and comfortable, all things considered. It even has a thatched roof!
We took a tour around the inside and outside, and I learned a lot. G stifled yawns and politely sat still while his eyes glazed over. I was lost in the mid-1600's, and thoughts of college. The tour guide would intersperse her spiel with famous lines from Shakespeare's plays and it was so, so cool.
G got his revenge, though, because we went straight from the Globe Theatre to the Imperial War Museum. I had mentally prepared myself, but I was expecting something akin to the MET. When we pulled up to a relatively small building, I could hardly contain my glee!
G sighed, looked around, and said, "Hmmm. I thought it would be bigger than this." I was all, "Oh, well! Here, go stand in front of those canons and I'll take your picture! This place looks just lovely!"
As he milled around the tanks and jeeps and missiles and submarines, I checked out the gift shop and the cafe. Let me tell you people - a little caffeine goes a long way. That's all I'm sayin.
But it made me think: we're approaching our eleventh anniversary. I come from a broken family and we are surrounded these days by marriages that do not make it (for a variety of reasons). One of the things that makes our marriage work is the fact that G will endure a tour of an old theater simply because I find it interesting and because the experience adds to my life. I will wonder aimlessly through war implements for an afternoon because G has found them fascinating since he was a boy, and because his eyes light up and his hands automatically begin to gesture when he describes the turret difference between this tank and that one. Or whatever he's talking about.
I think William Shakespeare would approve of how we spent this day. He was a brilliant observer of people and the human condition. He so accurately paints pictures of how we undermine our own efforts, destroy our own lives, and sometimes redeem ourselves in unexpected ways. He would have made some kind of analogy about love and war. And he would certainly think we've got a good thing going. And, as he once said, All's well that ends well...
I love those Globe Theater pictures! We had to make a model of it in high school. If my memory is right, compared to your pictures, I did a pretty good job!
ReplyDeleteAlso about the lottery. I think even if someone was well grounded, it would still cause problems. Someone close to us is in an strained position now and it seems to be because they have money (hard earned, not won) and the people causing the problems do not.