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Mirrors to the soul

October 20, 2022   ·   0 Comments

By Constance Scrafield

In the course of my life, there have been chances to meet many interesting people, people of wealth, and those who were influential politicians in their own countries; once the Lord Mayor of London’s Dinner, held at Mansion House while living in the UK – you know, lots of interesting souls. Also, dear friends among the not-particularly-well- off, as well as folk who speak a bunch of languages.

People. In lots of places, doing and saying lots of things, lots of opinions, projects, dreams, ambitions and achievements.

Plenty of humour. So much fun.

“My dear!” said a lady with whom friends and I had dined at another time, “didn’t we laugh!”

We were gathered to attend yet another fine affair. I had asked at the former, when we were enjoying such hilarity, if it were “alright to have so much fun at a place like this?” and was reassured that it was.

This life presented me with a revelation and is the main thrust of what I, even unconsciously, look for in people. Without directing a particular conversation or imposing one of my grills of questions, a habit sometimes hard to put to one side, I watch a person’s eyes, which are the truth sayers of what lies behind.

In any conversation, there are stories; indeed, our whole life, our everyday are made up of the stories that command our minutes and waking hours. How are those stories being told and what is the impetus of the conversation that directed one to them? Any opinion comes with the tale of how it lodged itself in a person’s mind and the talents and skills that person possesses took effort and inclination to achieve.

Yet with all the skills and acquisitions a person may hold, what does the knowledge and wealth of any kind do for the other people in that person’s environment and beyond? A person may speak one or several languages but what matters is what that person has to say in any of those languages, looking for kindness, honesty, a thirst to learn.

The powerful person in business or at all is only a person who has a life that can do great good with its power. There is an interesting story about King Charles III. As Prince of Wales, he was very concerned about the poverty and racial tension in Leicester and made several forays to influence both elements in that area, setting up charities and offices to assist with resolutions. His interest and concern were constantly resisted by his own office, people trying to restrain his involvement as beneath his status. He could not understand why people should be left to struggle as they were.

In the course of designing Basic Income, Patricia (my daughter) discovered the following statistics: there are in Canada –as examples: 764,033 people who, in 2022 are making between one and five million dollars; 91,823 people made between $5 and $30 million. The numbers of people descend as the number of millions go up.

To facilitate the support that would encompass a wide spread Basic Income to everyone, she has created four new tax brackets beginning with earners of $334,446 and on up, looking on the definition of wealth income to include, bonuses and gifts over a certain amount, foreign investments, various earnings from property ownership – that sort of thing. While her construct of Basic Income is fundamentally universal, she believes it should stop short of being extended to earners who find themselves comfortably situated about or above the (already existing) 33% income tax bracket.

Still, governments are toddies to the industrialists that have made themselves the real rulers of any country and once a person comes to the seat of power, right away they tell the new “chief” how things are and they corrupt the power of government, which was granted by the electorate of the country – big business corrupts with either threats or bribes.

So, to talk as Patricia does, of moderate taxes but sincerely meant to apply to all the sources of income that corporations and their CEOs and the whole self-involved pack of the so-called 1% for the benefit of the, say, 73 per cent is visionary in its structure and very likely to be confronted with push back and the usual yak about being job creators and the fiscal backbone of the nation.

Yet, amongst them, those of the 1 per cent, there are all sorts of eyes barely hiding the secret fears that accompany real wealth and there may be a hint, a whisper of the fairness of such a scheme; that it might be true that no one should live in poverty and no one should volunteer to die because not enough money can be given within all this wealth all around us for them to live in comfort and a clean environment, like a basic human right.

Since living here, more than ever, I have met many artists – wow – of every media and in a way, as not really noticed elsewhere, I am one of them. Connecting to people is all important to me but feeling as though one is part of that world has never been my experience until my life here.

Above all, let there be humour: “My dear! Didn’t we laugh!” I want that on my tombstone.

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