So Eton, everything I expected and more

[JoanBias]

My DS is at a private school, so I have experience of private schooling, but my word Eton was like another world.

Not just the school, but the people there.

There was one prep school being shown around, all in tweed jackets, and to a boy the spitting image of Draco Malfoy (well there was one Chinese boy, but otherwise....).

One of the mothers doing the tour was not quite right in some respect, I'm not sure how but something wasn't wired up correctly or something. She was immacuately dressed, 6-inch heels (pretty daft considering the confirmation letter warns about having a long walk), but she was just bizarre. The admissions tutor said 'we have a waiting list of 80 boys and typically 35% of these will make it through', and she asked afterwards 'so 80% of the boys from the waiting list make it through?', and it was then explained again, but you could kind of hear the cogs going round and she clearly didn't get it. She had asked several other similar questions; e.g., it was explained that some Houses are catering and others go to a central cafeteria, so she then asked 'so they all eat in the cafeteria'? She pointed at the Fives Court and asked me 'what do they play here?' I said 'Fives' 'Is it squash?', she said. 'No, Eton Fives.' 'So is it squash?' It seemed as if this woman had had the benefit of the 'Finishing School for the Terminally Dim', because she was otherwise every inch the presentable upper middle-class wife.

Another family had a son who looked the prototypical pre-Etonian, and sure enough Daddy spent the tour braying on about his House when he had been there.

The facilities were extremely impressive, although they didn't bother to show us any of the academic parts, and basically the impression was 'if your son is incredibly pushy and self-motivated, send him here and we will teach him to be entitled'. They said 'every year we reject about a third of the highest performers on the test', essentially because they aren't pushy enough. (The House Mistresses seemed quite nice though.)

Fantastic training for future managing directors and whatever, but not for us.....

Well worth it to sign up for a tour, very illuminating. They take about 100 a day from what I can see, so obligation at all....

I've thought about the idea of being sated a lot THERhubarb and I've come to the conclusion that this is to do with personality as much as anyhting.

Some of us are very driven. Not just for money, but for achievement and success. This is what makes a scientist carry on for years trying for that break through. It's what makes a musician practice for hours each day.

For some of us, we are never sated, never content (though that is not the same as unhappiness) always looking for the next challenge, the next goal. The idea that we should stop just because we can seems an odd one.

"When I wanted to continue with my education, I just did it.
When I wanted to move house, I just did it.
When I wanted to have children, I just did it.
When I wanted to give up my job, I just did it."

I did all those things, wordfactory, that's why I'm happy... I agree it isn't the same thing as being content. What I have difficulty understanding is when some people get themselves into this position, they still justify being more and more acquisitive, gaining more and more of the trappings of wealth, to the extent that they will say it is because they deserve it, that other people elsewhere in the world get more than them and this is a global business, that the wages of the cleaners and print room staff in the businesses they run are perfectly reasonable, because that's the going rate.... I couldn't go beyond your list and keep building my personal wealth on the back of such justifications - not once I'd gone well beyond the freedom which you describe.

But isn't everyone like this? The ambitious never feel fulfilled, the author and the composer say that once their work is finished they feel quite saddened and empty until the next project comes along. The unambitious are constantly wishing for changes but never know how to make them happen. We all seem to be searching for something that is never quite within reach. The poor think this is money, the rich think this is the next big challenge.

Look at celebrities, they have it all, fame and fortune but look at how many of them turn to drink, drugs or spirituality. Why do businessmen who rake in millions still try to evade tax? Why do some rich people still steal/shoplift/commit fraud? These are extreme examples I know, but I can't think of a single person who has just stopped and enjoyed what they have. Most keep on working even though they don't have to, most still love a challenge.

We need to be fulfilled. We need to feel needed. It's just another human emotion and perhaps we should accept that this is the way it is and stop denying it? We're all the same, poor or rich, we're still searching for something to keep us fulfilled.

Most likely because they have to work anyway so they may as well earn well. And if they earn well they may as well spend it.

If they stopped thier well paid job, they probably couldn't do nothing except help the needy. They'd have to take a lower paid job. So their time would still not be their own...and they might absolutely hate the lower paid job...

Brilliant points THERhubarb, money doesn't buy happiness but I would add that lack of it can induce utter misery, not because of envy but because people's choices are not only curtailed but their right to a dignified existence is.

I agree also with Word , some people are always going to be looking for the next goal, it is what drives the human race on. We might still be wearing fur bikinis and killing our own food, although Xenia thinks this is a healthy lifestyle.

Actually the very wealthy could live off the income from their investments and interest.
Most of us work because it gives us a reason for being. Stay at home mums have their reason for being in their children and that is work, it's just unpaid.

The wealthy won't share their wealth because of course they feel a sense of entitlement to it. Don't we spend half our lives justifying ourselves? It's the same thing only bigger.

There are wealthy people who are very generous but they'd never make themselves poor, they'd never give up their own comforts because by their rights they've 'earned' it. By my rights I've earned a nice bottle of red wine. We all do it, they just have more to do it with.

My family make me feel fulfilled and needed, and I'm not searching for another family. The voluntary work I do makes me feel fulfilled - I feel fulfilled if I feel useful and relevant. My plots and plans for the future interest me and keep me busy and give me something to aim for, but they're none of them relevant or worthwhile if they take me away from my central purpose of providing love and security for my family and having the benefit of their love and security in return. And my family is more secure if the world around me is secure, so of course I have an intense interest in what goes on outside the family home, but when it comes down to it, that all turns back in to my desire for my family to be happy, safe, secure and relevant. I don't need to leap about shouting "Look at me!" to feel relevant and useful.

I agree with that THERhubarb

What made JK Rowling continue after book four? She certainly didn't need the money.

What made Zadie Smith continue after book two? She certainly didn't need the plaudits.

But both felt compelled to carry on. To work longer and harder. To achieve what they set out to achieve.

Both have a new book out. Both know they are in for a slating...the pass time of the untalented is to observe and slate...and yet here they are, going for it again.

Yes Mini, there are people who are denied a dignified existence because of extreme poverty I agree. There are children who do not choose to be neglected, to go to school hungry, to wear dirty clothes. That's all they ever know and those children are denied a proper education or any chance in life. They might have high IQs but without love, without nurture, without nourishment they don't have a hope in hell. These are the children who are often called 'scum'.

Well rabbit that is lovely for you, but thank goodness there are scientists, doctors, poets, film makers, inventors, entrpreneurs etc that don't feel the same.

It would be a very monochrome existence otherwise...

There are wealthy people who would never make themselves poor, because they recognise that being poor is not at all fun... that's not the same thing as them thinking they deserve every penny of their wealth.

rabbit, your work is your family and the wider community. Would you stop doing voluntary work if you won the lottery? Would you just stop working and be with your family, not doing much at all? Or would you feel compelled to do something else? Money doesn't fulfil, that's my point. It doesn't make you feel needed, it doesn't provide stimulation.

I agree, wordfactory. The world is a far more varied and interesting place to have all sorts, including mad inventors and composers who neglect or abuse their families. I'm very glad I'm not attracted to that type, myself, though, or I would fail to achieve what is most important to ME! I also feel sad that society appears to be moving towards an increasingly monochrome existence, where wealth is admired too much, at the expense of paying attention to HOW it was created or what was also lost in the process.

True enough rabbit. No-one works their way to being poor. No-one chooses to live in poverty. I suspect that, if wages were distributed according to how physically demanding or stressful or labour intensive a job was then overall a lot more people would feel contentment in their work lives. (The wealthy being the minority of people worldwide)

THERhubarb - no of course I wouldn't stop. I do voluntary work because I've got to the point where money can't do any more for me at this point in my life. I have enough of that to be comfortable enough to have the luxury to look around for some meaning beyond survival.

That's my point rabbit. You have realised that money doesn't equal fulfilment, but some people never get to that realisation. They yearn for something that will not help them fill the void in their lives and some rich, even though they have everything they want, they keep going. They write that next bestseller, or they commit fraud, or they donate lumps to charity, or they collect cars as we would collect ornaments. They are still searching for meaning. You've found yours but that luxury of finding your fulfilment did come once you had enough to provide for your family.

I'm not sure Jeffrey Archer was searching for meaning when he behaved in the ways he did. Searching for thrills would be more accurate a description, I think!

These last 20 posts or so have all been very good.
I do think the one word that hasnt been mentioned in all of this is greed.
I agree that certain people are driven, and that is what keeps driving them forward. Nothing wrong with that imo.
And I still think those people are probably content.
And yes, you cannot be content being poor.

But there are some people who are greedy,never satisified no matter how much money and wealth they have, and they also do not spare much time and thought if they are taking wealth out the hands and mouths of others. In fact they seem to justifiy it in any which way they can.

Archer had money and he had career fulfilment but still he wasn't satisfied. Whether he was searching for thrills or something else, he was still searching. I doubt any of it made him happy.

amillionyears, perhaps they feel that if they can accrue more and yet more wealth there will come a point when they are satisfied. But that never happens.

Greed is linked with power. You start with a little and you end up taking more and more. It makes you feel invincible. We all like to be treated special, by our dh's or to have a fuss made over us on birthdays or Mother's Day. It's nice to feel special. They want that all the fecking time. To have people look up to them, to 'owe' them something, to be in control of peoples lives. They must feel like Kings. Greed and power are addictive.

There are lots of different issues on the thread now, but it is all the better for that.

1. My point is that how you feel is about balance of things in your brain, seratonin levels, beta endorphins, dopamine. (hence my comments about sunshine, food, exercise) Good health. We all should put these things top of the list. If you aren't happy and healthy it has an impact on how you treat others including children.

1. Some keep needing to achieve to prove they are better than a successful father who always never felt content with what his son achieved or because they came from absolute poverty or escaped persecution abroad and some hoard and hoard because of the damage done by their past. Plenty of successful people are so because they were damaged at boarding school hurt, unable to form close relationships or abused as a child etc etc. Of course lots of others "succeed" without that too.

1. Many of us do our work because we love it. I have as much delight from my work often as I do from gardening or being with the children and much more than domestic chores. Women as well as men find this and it is not about amount of money even although getting a lot of what you love is more fun than not getting much. Even rose is work you hate which pays very little.

1. Greed and envy are sins for a reason. If you can surround yourself with people who have less than you do rather than hanging out in Monaco then people tend to feel happier as keeping up with the Joneses whether you live in the Amazon or London or Cornwall will sadly be always with some of us.

1. Not everyone seeks greater riches. Some have a deliberate aim to pursue a life of poverty (and sometimes also chastity and obedience - religious orders). Many many housewives give up chances to earn a fortune because they want to devote their life to earning nothing whilst serving and servicing a husband and the children and move on from there to caring for 4 elderly grandparents and then nursing their elderly husband unto death by which time they are just about done in but perhaps happy as that is all they wanted - no money and serving others. You might say more fool them but we are all different.

I would certainly fly the flat for women picking work they adore whilst earning a lot of money and having a large family too. Lots manage it - JK Rowling as mentioned above, Branson and many many others male and female.

Like rabbit, I do work I really enjoy and which I find immensely interesting and combine it with looking after eight children (the three university ones and even the London one still need quite a lot of looking after - just a different sort of looking after). But the work isn't paid. Does that cause you to flag wave in the same way Xenia, or doesn't it count?

THERhubarb I was responding only to the comment you made that no-one is ever satisfied with their lot in terms of money; plenty of people are. That bit of what you said was far too generalised, that's all. I meant that the view that money is everything is small, not you.

JK doesn't have a large family Xenia and I'm not sure how Richard Branson is relevant, being a boy. And I'm also not sure that running five or eight children is much more time consuming in terms of time than three tbh. One just has to be a bit more dextrous.

Xenia - I go on aldi crunch threads because some of their products are amazing. Their Parmiggiano gets higher ratings than most other kinds and had a better taste than the very expensive one we tasted in La Fromageria, Marylebone the other week. Several of my Italian friends buy Aldi pasta, Parmiggiano, olive oil and pesto because they are good.

Just check out Observer food Monthly taste tests by decent chefs with decent palates. I also shop twice a week in Waitrose, at the weekly market (one of the best in UK) and at Brindisa/Lidgates ad nauseum

Please don't make silly uneducated observations about the way people shop these days. Or are you one of those people who assumes because it is expensive, it must be good?

Funny how Xenia promulgates the view that our peasant ancestors were all happy as Larry working outside in all weathers. If only good mental health was that simple.....(speaking as a senior RMN)