Enough is Enough

"Enough is enough" or is it? My father said this while we were chatting about something. I was wondering whether enough actually was ever enough and who decided as to what was just enough or a little too much or may be just not enough. How does one conclude if something is adequate, who is the best person to judge this. Gandhiji's quote is quite appropriate here,"There is enough for everyone's need but not for everyone's greed!" 

But the story of homo sapiens is essentially a story of greed, greed for money, food, lifestyle, material stuff.If we were all contented, we would probably have stayed as cave dwellers. Greed is thus good just that we must know where do we limit it. We have had politicians who have amassed assets which would probably suffice for seven generations to follow, but they are not satisfied and even that is not enough for them. Similarly the billionaires Bill Gates, Elon Musk, Warren Buffets and our own Ambanis and Adanis have wealth way beyond anyone's imagination, we would run out of zeros when the total value is calculated. 

There is a famous folklore of "Niyanve ka fer (the curse of 99)", there was this fakir, who did not have anything to boast of, lived off the land, under a tree, free from any encumbrances, always cheerful. The king was envious of this fakir who despite being a pauper seemed in eternal bliss. He consulted his Wazir, who said that just hand over 99 gold coins to him and watch the fun. Sure enough, when the fakir got these 99 gold coins, greed followed surreptitiously. Now the fakir wanted that one additional coin to make it to 100 and set about working rather than relaxing and once he got the hundred then the chain reaction was triggered, he wanted to add another hundred and so on, his life was ruined, no longer in bliss, just running after that elusive figure which would be "enough".

Greed for lip smacking delicacies is of another level altogether, the person concerned knows that every morsel which is gobbled up is adding to the already excess calories which will stubbornly refuse to be shed once added. Pot belly is a bank which is unique, it just multiplies, how I wish, our banking system developed a similar trait, when you can just see it grow. Our bank accounts on the contrary are like the furry pets, constantly shedding, by the month end they eagerly await the next tranche much like the starved person longing for his next meal. Overdoing it just adds to the  number of visits to the loo, but then the weakness of flesh overrides the sane counsel being provided by the mind. If Yudhishthira had understood that enough was enough, there won't have been any Mahabharata. Alas, it was not to be.

We all have heard of the Midas touch, which itself was a curse, King Midas was rewarded by Dionysus that everything he touched would turn to gold. Sure enough, his food, his beloved daughter and any and everything turned inanimate gold. Greed is the sure recipe for disaster in the long term, especially if it seeks personal  gains only be it material or physical. 

On the contrary, Capitalism is all about greed and ambition, as Deng Xiao Ping famously said,"It is glorious to be rich".  Swearing by Marx and communism, they could accommodate and justify greed as that was the only path to salvation. Even we Indians did a course correction from the idealism of socialism and liberalised the economy. For James Bond "World was not enough", Musk has gone ahead and proved it by literally setting out to the outer space. It was only Ashoka the Great who decided 'enough was enough' after Kalinga War, the mindless violence having taken its toll, wonder when Putin and Biden- Zelensky would be convinced that enough is actually enough.

(The link to the article published in Free Press Journal 

https://epaper.freepressjournal.in/Home/Mindex?eid=2&edate=12/03/2023&pgid=10206&sedId=0&uemail=)