Saturday, January 7, 2012

Vanity of vanities

The words of the Preacher, the son of David, king in Jerusalem.
“Vanity of vanities,” says the Preacher,
“Vanity of vanities! All is vanity.”
What advantage does man have in all his work
Which he does under the sun? . . .
All things are wearisome;
Man is not able to tell it. . . .
There is no remembrance of earlier things;
And also of the later things which will occur,
There will be for them no remembrance
Among those who will come later still.

Vanity ~~ We really do not use this word, very much, any more. Seems we more prefer “vain” as in Joni Mitchell’s song “You’re so vain, I bet you think this song is about you, don’t you, don’t you!”

I am of the age that I remember a piece of furniture found in some homes that was called a “vanity”. I suppose antique hunters and owners are familiar with it. What was interesting about the vanity, was that it was a relatively small desk, with a number of small drawers. The center part of the desk, was considerably lower than the sides, which allowed for a good sized mirror, so, the person sitting in front of it could have a good look at themself. But if you remember, then you also remember there was a smaller mirror on each side of the larger mirror. These were on hinges, to allow them to be moved to give a more advantageous look at the person sitting there. I can imagine the desk got the name from people thinking that sitting in front of the three mirrors was vanity (being vain).

So, in the wee hours of this morning, my mind was cogitating on vanity. Imagine that! Only a different kind of vanity, but vanity none the less. Think about this... a person goes into a casino, sits down in front of a machine, plays the machine for four hours, spending one thousand dollars. Then, they hit a jackpot for say, one thousand six hundred dollars, and they are ecstatic! They beat the system...they won! Ah, but think about this...the thousand dollars they spent, had already been taxed as income, so, now, they have a thousand six, and that is going to be taxed also.

Is it not vain to think it is all right to pay high taxes, to a central governing body, so the body can then send back a portion? How often I have heard people brag about how much government money our state has been able to receive. Want to know what people want in an elected federal representative??? That’s right...how much money can you give us?

At the expense of being redundantly redundant, our founding relatives chose to risk months of sea travel, to leave behind countries that had rulers demanding onerous taxes, and demanding people belong to a certain church. Guess that might have been a part of Hitler’s amenability to be leader of Germany, and Germany’s state church. The Preacher has said,

“There is no remembrance of earlier things;
And also of the later things which will occur,
There will be for them no remembrance
Among those who will come later still.”

Methinks we do not suffer from excess vanity, but instead enjoy every bit of it!