It takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that.

Do you know what is the difference between being a god and being a human being? Do you know what makes us humans?

Our limitations.

We need to be limited so as to be challenged to do more and be more human. Our inferiority complex is giving birth to ambition and to a speculative or opportunistic spirit. But if we don’t feel inferior in some way, we rarely do something noteworthy and, if we do something, it is rarely something great. We need a lot of energy so as to accomplish great deeds, and our limitations serve as a great source of strength and motivation. Without inferiority, with passion only, we rarely do something remarkable. And if we eventually do something, it typically serves our own private pleasure and is rarely shared with the rest of the world. A private diary is a good example. A private garden is another example.

Despite the fact that having limitations is a typical human problem, these limitations aren’t the same for everyone. The human society is stratified on layers or levels – whether we want it or not. Some people are rich and some people are poorer. Some people are born rich or middle-class and some people are born in deprived communities. And the place of birth generally shapes our destiny, as the amount of limitations increases with the amount of poverty. In other words, the start in life is important. What is also important is one’s personality: some people remain within the boundaries of their social class, while others strive for more. And those who struggle to climb the social ladder are typically referred to as ambitious. However, the place where they started their existential journey will always define their attitude in life, as there is a subtle difference between someone born rich and someone who has worked to make oneself rich.

There is, obviously, a different psychology.

The psychology of someone born at the lower or inferior levels of society is defined by lacking stuff, by scarcity and deprivation. As a consequence, the main attitude goes by the saying “more is better”. There is some sort of hunger that can be easily felt, along with a vague fear that one might lose what one has. As Lewis Carroll says in Alice in Wonderland, and again in Through the Looking-Glass, “it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place” and “if you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that”. In other words, a lot of energy is consumed in maintaining oneself at the already achieved level or, if one is ambitious, climbing up at higher levels. This attitude – of being successful, of being a winner, of going beyond one’s limitations – is highly cherished by the usual folk and appreciated by society in general. We do love our heroes, especially if they manage to do the (almost) impossible. Why? Because we identify with them, at least partially.

The psychology of someone born at the higher levels of society is little known, because few psychological books are written about the elites. The greatest psychologists of the last century have worked with members of the general population who developed various neuroses or depressions, but little is known about those born “already successful”. We can guess that they are more eccentric than the usual folk and that they value more the insightful or esthetical side of life, since their needs are already met and they never had to fight for basic stuff such as food, shelter, security or friends. They probably seek adventure and new experiences, since their life tends to be boring. Some might feel a sense of guilt and might encourage a rebalance of wealth or rights for various minorities, following an idealistic yet completely out of place empathy. What seems to be true is that the perceptions and the conclusions of someone born rich are very different from the ones of someone born poorer. Where the poor person is concerned about injustice, inequality and the perspective of hunger and loss, the rich person is concerned about generosity and equal chances in an idyllic fantasy world, where competition and violence have been replaced by love and love alone. (Or – Alas! – by greed for even more of everything…)

My opinion is that you cannot really understand someone unless you enter in his or her world, using your imagination if you can’t do it otherwise. Your limitations shape your worldview and your societal birthplace shapes your opinion about what is appropriate to do in life. The perceptions shift once you climb the social ladder and what seems completely psychotic, foolish or downright insane for the lower levels is completely reasonable and acceptable for the higher ones. The tricky problem is that both the upper and the lower levels are right; and the horror is that it is perfectly acceptable for the higher levels to start a war in which the lower levels shall die…