Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn:
Jacob Wrestling with the Angel
(1659)

"I'm still not all that careful."

My mother often warned me to be careful what I wished for. She never extrapolated her warning into specifics, but I still caught her gist. She was saying that there’s just no escaping some uncertain load of externalities, whatever the activity. Youthful boredom could easily drive me into some activity that might cost me more than I’d ever bargained for. In the face of that boredom, I might agree to anything without thinking very far into even the more likely outcomes. I could end up with more work than I’d imagined possible as a result of trying to escape some work I knew for certain that I found disagreeable. Her admonishment usually reminded me that there’s no such thing as a free lunch, and even breakfast is likely to cost me more than I might have imagined.

Even Prosperity, that emerald city at the end of every rainbow, exacts taxes. I read somewhere that Tesla tires cost half again as much as tires for an equivalent conventional car. Teslas weigh more and transmit more torque, so the tires have to be heavy-duty. They wear out much more quickly, too. Further, their aluminum body and special glass are also much more expensive to fix and must be serviced by a certified shop. The price of that Prosperity shouldn’t surprise anybody because Prosperity always demands certain Responsibilities from those it visits. I might aspire to retire to a lovely home in the country without realizing that lovely homes tend to be more exacting than shabby ones. I will need to keep up appearances once I move in. This will impact my retirement.

I still imagine Easy Streets waiting for my arrival at the end of my next rainbow. I spent my time living below the poverty line. I remember how jealously I guarded my hopes and aspirations, for I believed them to carry my salvation. I imagined that Prosperity would transport me up and into a rarefied world, one where my life wouldn’t be able to help but be easier. To the extent that I succeeded in achieving Prosperity, I’m still waiting for that once-imagined salvation to find me. My world might be even more complicated than it seemed before I became prosperous. Prosperity essentially resolved nothing, none of the complications and plot twists that have always bedeviled my existence, even in my youth. There might be no cure for even the milder existential crises. They might always remain with us, regardless.

While Prosperity might represent a reward, it also shares some characteristics of punishment. It carries its own, uniquely troubling Responsibilities that cannot be avoided. Some who become merely Prosperous aspire to become truly rich, believing, perhaps, that only greater wealth might deliver them from Prosperity’s inconveniencing Responsibilities, and perhaps they’re right. Never having been rich, I would still bet that great wealth inflicts its own set of equally vexing responsibilities on the wealthy as it does on us who are merely prosperous.

I could have sworn that my mom was trying to ruin my childhood when she would warn me to be careful what I wished for, for it sure seemed like a buzzkill whenever she cautioned me. I would have rather that she just leave me alone to discover my own devils, rather than have her remind me that I might be the devil I was attempting to flee from. Still, I appreciate her efforts now, for they remind me just how innocently I once moved around in the world. I long ago learned to anticipate certain uncertain externalities. I could not have matured into a proper paranoid without her well-intended influence. I would have lost that innocence regardless, counterbalanced by largely unwanted yet still valuable experience.

Responsibilities now seem essentially endless. I acknowledge that nothing, not Prosperity, not even the most extreme poverty, frees anyone from their Responsibilities. I might be able to shift a few, but I might be wise to accept that their volume remains constant, regardless. In my youth, I could easily imagine escaping from some of the more onerous ones. As I enter my dotage, I acknowledge that I rarely, if ever, actually managed to escape a single one. The best I ever managed might have been to delay a few or, more often, trade a familiar one for a more exacting unfamiliar one, for I was rarely terribly careful what I wished for. I’m still not all that careful.

©2026 by David A. Schmaltz - all rights reserved

Tags: #Prosperity, #PureSchmaltz