Ojnab

It's not so much the dictionary I need, it's the faux intellectual dissertation that creates something which needs interpretation to understand what the writer is trying to convey. I think that sometimes it's an effort to try and impress rather than persuade.
My father once asked me if I knew what a periphrasis was and when I said No, he said it's simply a circumlocutory and pleonastic cycle of oratorical sonorosity circumscribing an atom of ideality obliterated by verbal profundity... in other words an indirect method of speech writing !

Snake L O L, I do admit my brain goes into overdrive trying to work it all out, keeps Altzheimers at bay though thank goodness.

Hi Squeers, there's no apologium of the sort you suggest, merely a recognition that making my personal capacity for happiness dependent on your material attainment is a doomed venture for both of us.

We need to decouple fundamentally different aspects of human endeavour, or we must face up to the fundamentally contradictory aspects of making the one dependent on the other.

You say you lament the materialist credo, yet you define the limits of the human capacity for happiness materially. With all due respect, in this it is not possible to have it both ways.

Snake, beautifully put.

Craig Minns,

after all this time you might at least show me the courtesy of addressing my argument in detail, as I've addressed yours, rather than misrepresenting me. Clearly you dislike being taken to task and would rather fob me off in this false and simplistic fashion.
So be it, but I shan't waste more words in the face of this kind of treatment.

In addition, considering you like snake's tips on style so much, you might like to revise your dense first sentence.

Snake,
I for one strive for clarity, with some consideration for style and not to impress unduly; I suspect the problem lies with you.

Squeers, my sincere apologies, I had no intent to denigrate your argument or to misrepresent. My reply was dashed off in haste and I should probably have waited to do a more comprehensive job. As for snake's comment, I may like it

My point was that life is what we make of it from what we have. For my own part, I have few financial resources, I share my rented home with sub-tenants who have become good friends to save on rent, my 16 year-old son and I live on Austudy and a share of FTB along with a small scholarship. I have effectively no super for various reasons and I don't own a car, just a motorcycle which I haven't bothered to register for the last 12 months since I live close to uni.

Should I mope because Gina Reinhardt or Frank Lowy exist? To what end?

I enjoy my life and I take pride in living it as well as I can. We have all we need to be comfortable and to thrive as a family.

I grew up in PNG, where poverty is the norm for the vast majority and life for many of those is precariously situated at the edge of urban centres. The disparities are broad and deep across that beautiful, mismanaged country and the politics of envy are deeply rooted. Despite that, some people manage to enjoy their lives and to do what they can to make the most of things. Others spend their time bemoaning their lot in misery or plotting crimes against the wealthy expats and locals, their lives brutish and often short.

Inequalities of distribution are undesirable but inevitable, even in command economies. On the other hand, living life well is largely a personal choice. Even the very rich can screw that up and often do, c'est la vie.

The Snake Summary
Life is short. Live it well. Do good where you can. Help if you're asked to; ask for it sparingly. Do things that challenge you. Learn from your mistakes.