Wealth versus Liberty of the Mind

If I was rich, I wouldn't be free. Kind of an odd statement. Usually wealth entails a level of freedom that the poor and economically disadvantaged don't have. This is true in most contexts, but not in the freedom I am referring to. If I was rich, I wouldn't have the liberty of the mind that I have at this point in my life. I would have never needed to.  

    Wealth would have given me a freedom to move more easily and acquire resources more easily, and this would have deprived me of the base incentive for deep thought; the need to ask questions. If my base physical needs were met in absolute abundance where all the finer, luxurious, and more leisurely comforts the rich take for granted were easily at my disposal, I wouldn't need to ask deep, meaningful philosophical and existential questions. 

 I'd have all I'd ever want and need at my immediate grasp. 

 This would have prevented me from coming to many of the conclusions and understandings I have come to over the years. 

It's kind of a mixed sentiment, realizing that my lack of wealth catalyzed my liberty of the mind, and I could have only achieved the knowledge that I have by being deprived of a significant degree of economic liberty.   

I am both grateful for this, but also a part of me always wanted to travel to Europe or other exotic places.  Nothing is out of the question, though. 

I've learned that money just puts people into a different form of bondage. A mental bondage. Wealth makes the servitude a little more comfortable, but that comfort often makes people oblivious to their servitude. I think there is no worse slavery on the planet than slavery of the mind. A slavery where you don't realize you are a slave. 

I realized over the last few years that my economic disadvantage and a sense of oppression or subjugation was the primary driving force in my quest for knowledge, my quest for purpose, and my quest for Liberty. 

There is nothing quite like deprivation of resources and a sense of lack of freedom to fuel the hunger for liberty and the thirst for knowledge. Liberty has always been far more desirable to those who don't have it and quite often far more taken for granted by those who do. 

Liberty of the mind, for me, is the most important liberty I can have, and it is a liberty I would have never sought after or achieved as much of had I had more wealth. This is something I also have to come to terms with in my life.