Kamisaka Sekka
Plovers Flying Across a River above Snow-Laden Reeds (Fuyu no Kawa),
from the series “Worlds of Things (Momoyogusa)”
(1878)

"…especially when in the presence of behaviors that just irk the crap out of us."

Prosperity might encourage generosity, but not automatically, never inexorably. Some seem to respond to it by suddenly turning inexplicably Stingy, as if the very presence of plenty prefaced a threatening shortage. This response does not seem at all uncommon and almost seems expected sometimes. I learned to respect others’ apparent Prosperity, to tiptoe around its perimeter with extreme care without assuming an overflowing cup inside. Those in the finest houses seemed more likely to stiff me when I went collecting for their newspaper subscription, often short of “change,” and expecting me to return to get paid. Those who lived in more ramshackle houses tended to be more generous. I was never really moved to wonder why, if only because I didn’t really want to understand. I figured I was witnessing some psychological syndrome manifesting, and that I might be better off not knowing the details behind it, lest it be contagious and spread by sharing poisoning knowledge of it.

Stingy might be an extreme form of self-protection, and, as with many of the more common forms of self-protection, it seems, at root, self-destructive. This apparent paradox probably isn’t lost on even those who suffer from such disorders. Like smoking, the habit might have started with the best of intentions before outgrowing its own innocence. Then, it became the Devil’s own presence, and one nigh-on impossible to shake. When I smoked, I actively, even enthusiastically, engaged in creating my own demise, and I was never not painfully aware of my personal complicity. I felt inexorably engaged, as if indentured to serve as my own weary judge, wary jury, and deeply sorry executioner. It only seems logical that I was a willing colluder, though will or its absence never had a thing to do with even the least of that habit. I was addicted. Escape seemed beyond my abilities until, one day, it just wasn’t anymore.

Stingy might be that same sort of addictive presence. Less a decision than a curse visited upon an, at-root, unwilling victim. Scrooge might not have been Stingy by nature, but by something more akin to nurture. In this culture, it seems to matter who one votes for, as one’s cohorts might exert the deepest influence on what might otherwise be considered completely personal choices. Those who believe neediness to be clear evidence of aberrant life choices, for instance, might easily justify what others might perceive to simply be Stingy behavior, as an inability to share, if not necessarily their wealth, then, at least, a bit of their obvious Prosperity. They might not play a violin while their Rome burns around them, but they do seem to smugly deny personal responsibility to engage in what most might refer to as charity. If their cohorts view such actions not as evidence of stinginess but of natural selection, I might question my assumptions behind concluding that an innate Stinginess might have been driving their behavior. They might have thought themselves the benefactor.

It’s at least dicey to attribute motive to anybody’s actions. Not even Occum offered a reliable method for deciding what another’s intentions might be short of asking. Of course, if one finds the courage (or foolhardiness) to ask—for such questions often border on impertinence—one must accept the response at more or less face value, even if, and especially if, you suspect some self-deception lurking within the response. Intentions tend to be more complicated than their supporting actions initially appear. Who are any of us to judge? Yet, judge we do. For me, Stingy elicits strong emotions. It seems cruel as well as ultimately self-destructive, so the knight-errant inside me always wants to set forth and slay the obvious dragon breathing fire before me. My inner knight-errant almost always turns out to be in error. It was never his job to slay such dragons, for, if they actually be dragons, which seems unlikely, they tend to serve some other than obvious purpose, and might also be due their own life, liberty, and pursuit of whatever passes for happiness in a fire-breathing dragon. Better, usually—often—to let that other deal with their own dragons. That’s probably what they’re there for.

Generous interpretations serve as a non-obvious sort of Prosperity. When I feel as though I can afford to make generous interpretations, my inner knight-errant finds far fewer dragons in need of slaying. Dragon slaying’s not even half what it has traditionally been cracked up to be. It’s inherently disappointing work, messy and deeply dangerous, better left undone. The primary purpose of generous interpretation might be to transform dragons into myth, legends that exist to inform rather than insist and imperil. The underlying difficulty with stinginess might not lie with the Stingy, but with those who feel moved to look down their noses in the Stingy’s presence. Who’s to say that looking down one’s nose doesn’t constitute the greater sin, one that lies on the darker side of self-importance and lacks the same generosity that Stingy does? Perhaps Stingy shows up just to remind us of the absolute importance of making those generous interpretations, especially when in the presence of behaviors that just irk the crap out of us.

©2026 by David A. Schmaltz - all rights reserved

Tags: #Prosperity, #PureSchmaltz