“You’ve Got the Stuff to Make Life Rich”

Dear Famous Cracker Company,

On your ad, you say I have all the stuff to make life rich. How philosophical!

If you don’t mind me asking, Please expound! What is this “stuff” you suggest I possess? Perhaps you are thinking of the quote by Schopenhauer when he says that “What a man is and has in himself, is the only immediate and direct factor in his happiness and welfare.” Too true!

From my lay-man’s reading of your bold statement, I am deeply moved by your implication. But I am frankly astonished that you could see so deep into my soul so quickly (I only turned the page and you had a read on me!) You (your brand) must believe that the select masses who read “Martha Stewart Living” know what really matters in life. That what is Natural and Free, Beautiful and Good is what truly has value. That it’s not comprised of anything you can buy on a grocery store shelf.

However, I have a sneaking suspicion you and your marketing team have another meaning in mind. May I inquire how you define “rich”, as you mention it multiple times in your ad? Could you be implying that your “stuff” is what makes life rich? Could you be suggesting I already have a box of your special brand crackers in my pantry; because that would be assuming too much! Could you be suggesting that if I don’t have a box of your iconic treats, it is in my best interest to purchase some?  Because that would be ridiculous.The logic just doesn’t stand! 

“Life’s Rich” you say, snuggled up beside your renowned emblem. Then you must know what Schopenhauer said, “that what a man is contributes much more to his happiness than what he has.” (Whether a man has or hasn't any crackers is not accounted for in his philosophy.)

Your crafty truism seems to imply that your company values those things that make life rich, in the broadest sense. And yet, pardon my cynicism, I could point to just the opposite conclusion. From looking at your product alone, you value what is unnatural and artificial. I could say your company and all the Aisle 5 name brand companies out there are just marketers of over-salted, packaged illusions, partially hydrogenated and overcooked lies, with no grain of common humanity. Speaking generally of course.

Yet you claim, to contribute to the Good Life, the rich life. I would say, pardon my rudeness, that you contribute to just the opposite. Heart disease, diabetes, obesity, malnutrition, could probably in some round-about way be linked to your very company. It’s amazing that even with all the Organic, Natural brand companies taking your buyers from you, instead of looking at how to change to fit the market, you still just print up another ad with some pithy truism attached to some even more clever photo op. And on your merry way you go. 

Modern day society is actually much like one of your circular wafers; it offers up very little sustenance and even less nourishment. However, unlike the masses, I happen to see beneath the falsity and perversity of commercialism, and that means I see beneath your red, white and blue, coordinated spread. I would hope today’s companies care more about filling people’s stomachs with quality ingredients than filling their heads with mindless one-liners. You know what’s appealing? A company whose integrity translates from what they “say” to what they actually “do”.  Life is rich; but not because of anything to do with your snacks.

Yours most sincerely,

-Not an admirer

::Help Wanted::

What are we really doing to help one another in this life? Especially when times get hard?

There is so much suffering in the world; so much pain. So much that if we were sensitive enough to feel it all we would collapse from the pressure of it. 

The ads on TV about standing together or being in this together, whether on the opioid crisis or after a natural disaster, are they truly coming from a place of care? However initially well-intentioned,  too many campaigns and corporations are built on and run on crisis and disease being highly marketable. Why is all the money we throw at relief funds not creating any relief?  The homeless are still sleeping on sidewalks, the elderly are still alone in their homes. The rich keep getting richer, meanwhile the poor and ill get left behind. Ralph Waldo Emerson, in his essay "Manners", put it eloquently:

 “What is rich? Are you rich enough to help anybody?

“…to make such feel that they were greeted with a voice which made them both remember and hope? What is vulgar but to refuse the claim…? What is gentle, but to allow it, and give their heart and yours one holiday from the national caution? Without the rich heart, wealth is an ugly beggar. The king of Shiraz could not afford to be so bountiful as the poor Osman who dwelt at his gate. Osman had humanity so broad and deep...there was never a poor outcast, eccentric, or insane man…but fled at once to him;...it seemed as if the instinct of all sufferers drew them to his side. Is not this to be rich? This only to be rightly rich.”

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Some things like death are universal, a certainty not unexpected. But needless deaths, needless illness and suffering…these are the things we can’t understand, especially when they can be helped. All the other "progress" in the world can't make up for this lack of  empathy. What is all the money, power and knowledge in the world for except to help those who could truly benefit from them? 

Several weeks ago, to my astonishment, I found in my vintage copy of Pilgrim’s Progress (antique store purchase) a folded piece of paper with someone’s cursive handwriting flooding the page. Someone had been writing about just this issue, but back in the 1940’s, and I happened to have come across it in this way. There reads on the stationary letterhead in embossed gold, “U.S. Naval Air Station, Pensacola, Florida.” Here is what the Unknown man wrote,

“If we change conditions, will that Eliminate suffering?

If any good is to come out of suffering it must come first in changed people, not just in changed things. Suffering, by itself never changes conditions, but it can change people who in turn change things. Touching story of David’s great sin and of his suffering for it, (II Sam, 12:1-23 gives a perfect illustration of what can happen through suffering.

Yes, if any good comes out of the suffering of this war, it must come through changed people.

Men prophesy, what great material benefits will come after this war. Magnesium, automobiles, synthetics, the age of plastics, marvel of air transport, progress in the relief of physical suffering through great advances in medical science. All these material advances can turn out to be increased evils, unless changed people have learned through suffering how to live with one another. Mark Twain said, “_____”.

It is well for us to look at one of history’s most often repeated lessons. The shores of human history are lined with the wreckage of nations who have developed the power to build things and have fallen short in the far more important task of building men.

The chief bulwark of any nation—without which, all other bulwarks fail—is the character of its people, men and women who love justice so much they practice it, who love truth so much that they believe it in preference to lies.

He who did most for this world suffered most. He walked the way of loneliness, hardship, abuse, self-denial, suffering and—the cross.”

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As the U.S. Naval officer keenly saw, if there is to be any good, any meaning to come of all the suffering, it must come through changed people. People who are changed (for the good) and can make positive changes for those who need their particular care and attention. We all have our different gifts, burdens and life paths. This means we also all have something unique and worthwhile to give our fellow man. 

So, are you rich enough to give of yourself?