Money Can’t Buy Me Love . . . Or Class

What can money buy?

A sense of entitlement, the idea that no one else’s viewpoint besides mine has value, the insistence that the universe revolves around me and my petty wants, and a life without the kind of limits that offer respect for the rights of others, particularly for those who are less privileged financially.

Let’s start on the island of Nantucket, the home of the rich and famous for occasional vacation time… and also the home of those who live there year-round, the not-so-rich-and-famous.

Here’s what is happening, according to a recent article in the Wall Street Journal:

In January, someone apparently slashed a 947-foot-long structure of sand-filled tubes, designed to slow erosion of scenic Sconset Bluff. The damage to the project—on which homeowners spent about $18 million, and could cost another $2 million to repair—has inflamed a battle between people trying to save expensive summer homes teetering on the bluff’s edge and year-rounders who say nature should take its course.

Two radically differing points of view—both, in the eyes of those holding them, 100% legitimate. And it’s causing a war among neighbors.

A War Closer To Home

Now, to bring this closer to home, I live in an HOA-governed neighborhood. I readily say that our board and committees are staffed by a group of great volunteers who bring admirable expertise and invest significant time in keeping this area a prime place to live.

It’s also an older neighborhood, established over 35 years ago, and many of the original tree and shrub plantings in common areas have had to be replaced. More still need attention.

Our own house is one example: Built in 1991, only one of the original plantings remains: a priceless, wonderfully shade-giving Live Oak tree.

Everything else, including another large Live Oak that became diseased, has had to be removed and replaced as best as possible—but it is different. The loss of a mature tree has a long-term impact.

All original shrubs are gone. 95% of the areas previously covered with high-maintenance, high-watering-needs grasses have now been xeriscaped with native plants that require far, far less water and minimal attention. Other areas where we faced endless drainage problems (common throughout our area) are now full of river rocks, covering extensive French drains installed to prevent standing water and its attendant mosquito hazards.

It’s been an expensive and painful process, but necessary.

To get back to the HOA issues, many of the common areas have had to undergo similar reconstructive processes. And some residents are blowing up over the situation.

A few days ago, all residents received an email from the HOA board that read, in part: [Note: the original email has been redacted to eliminate identifying businesses and locations.]

. . . that having been said, when the ***[landscape company name]*** Enhancement work crew appeared, they were met with behavior from some residents that was aggressive and accompanied by threats to call the police. This is unacceptable and an embarrassment to us as a community. As a result, ***[landscape company name]*** has informed us that they will not return to [***specific location within the neighborhood boundaries]*** for any work until a plan is in place to prevent their crew from being threatened. We are confident such behavior will not occur again.

And there we have it. As one of my friends noted, “Money can’t buy them class.”

Yep, Money Can’t Buy Them Love . . . Or Class

And for me, one of the early and often-reviled “Baby Boomers,” this memory popped immediately into my slowly withering brain:

Yep, money can’t buy me, or you, love either.

What can money buy?

A sense of entitlement, the idea that no one else’s viewpoint besides mine has value, the insistence that the universe revolves around me and my petty wants, and a life without the kind of limits that offer respect for the rights of others, particularly for those who are less privileged financially.

But money can’t buy class; it can’t buy the ingrained habit of treating other human beings with dignity and respect. Money also can’t buy active listening skills, the kind of skills that may give the ability to see the world in ways different from our own, always limited, perspectives.

And so we fight, and threaten, and vandalize and start wars and ruin neighborhoods and nations.

Many, many years ago, in the midst of a struggling, strangling relationship, I wrote this:

Hear or Listen?

I can tell by your face whether you hear my words only, or are listening to my heart. You may hear me when your thoughts drift to business or play, but you listen when my words are as water to you when you are dry and fuzzy­ tongued.

Listen as a skilled lip-reader, when even a blink will cause you to miss an important word, and I’ll slice my soul open for you.

But offer me quick solutions, and I know you have only heard.

Move your face in harmony with my thoughts, and we have touched.

Glance through the mail, catch up on the day’s headlines—then you have built a stone wall between us where contact is impossible.

Keep your eyes on mine, and your hands in mine, and we will dance together to music others can never hear.

How often do any of us experience the powerful magic, the fathomless mystery, the intimate connection of profound listening? It is what truly classy people do: they recognize that their world is not the only world, the only reality, the only truth. They are willing to change when it is necessary and healthy and life-giving.

Most importantly, classy people live by the universal religious injunction: treating others the way we wish to be treated, AKA the “golden rule.” It’s life-changing, both on an individual and a worldwide level.

I wonder now, well over 30 years since I penned those words above, if what few listening skills we humans may have had back then are now nearly irretrievably gone.

In our rushed, “let me hit you harder with my latest meme than you can hit me” world, where “conversations” takes place by misspelled, non-punctuated and hurriedly written text messages or posts on social media, where opposing viewpoints are routinely condemned by “Well, you are a . . . and that’s why you think that way,” dismissal, where noise from ever-on talking heads bombard our ears—or where many wear devices with one sound coming in one ear even while speaking with another—well, can anyone listen deeply?

I know I can’t. If I’m going to engage in the life-changing act of wholehearted listening, and if I’m going to be listened to, then devices must disappear, minds cleared, internal defenses intentionally set aside, verbal [and physical] weapons unloaded and locked away, and time, precious, limited time, set aside.

Only this way can we find our common humanity and become vulnerable enough to see others as they are, not as we imagine they are, and to be seen. Otherwise, what passes for “conversation” seems to be reduced to hurled insults, belittling nicknames, and grenades tossed over impenetrably thick walls of differences.

Yep, money can’t buy us class . . . or peace . . . or even agreement over aging trees and eroding beaches, all of which are part of living in a world where everything changes, everything ages, and disruptive new births are essential for continuing life and health.

One of my moments of sadness over the state of humanity. We’ve reduced ourselves to slogging through the stench of mud-slinging, crass, classless, expletive-laden tirades, starting at the top and permeating every aspect of society.

Folks, we can be better than this. And it can start with us.