In 1700 King Louis XIV of France, had 498 people preparing his meals, per historian Matt Ridley. This would have included chefs, sous chefs and their assistants; bakers, butchers and a crew who kept ovens stoked.
Add to that the cleanup workers, those who set tables, folded napkins, polished silverware and so on. It might have included vineyard workers or coopers making wine barrels. It took a hefty payroll to do the job.
Being the Sun King doesn’t seem like a bad gig if you can get it. Most of us would willingly trade places with Louis XIV, but that doesn’t mean he was a happy man.
Very likely, if he studied ancient Egyptian history, he would have been miserable. The pharaohs were at the top of any all-time list of rulers who had wealth to afford power and pleasure. One of them expected to have a breakfast of lark’s tongues to start his day.
Today we don’t think about how many people take care of us. Louis and his mates relied mainly on locally-sourced food. We have come to think of important food as something of a birthright: fresh fruit out of season, coffee, tea, chocolate are just the start.
All those commodities take many people to grow the produce, harvest and ship it, process it and eventually get it on our shelves.
Most of us keep our blinders on so we don’t have to look how we rely on others. We prefer to remain unaware of them. Worse, we would rather focus on what we do not have and wallow in our misery.
Louis’ contemporary, French mathematician Blaise Pascal, observed “the sole cause of man’s unhappiness is his inability to stay quietly in his room.” That applies to us today.
Rulers and oligarchs still love to go to war or engage in intrigues hoping will bring them still more wealth and power.
People like you and me may set our sights lower, but we too love intrigue and drama. Even when we can’t actively engage in them, they are favorite forms of entertainment.
For example, Kevin Costner and Helen Mirren in the television series “Yellowstone” aren’t all that far removed from medieval rulers. Are the “Real Wives of …” any different from drama queens of the royal courts? Even a liquor commercial features a segment where the actress demands, “Give me xxxx and drama!”
No wonder so many people are unhappy. Instead of staying quietly in our rooms, the moment life gets too quiet we want to stir things up.
Pascal said this explains the real quest for economic, social and especially political power. “We want to be diverted from who we are,” he said.
“Some,” he went on, “seek external diversion and occupation as result of their constant sense of wretchedness. Rest proves intolerable because of the boredom it produces. They must get away from it and crave excitement.”
We all know people in our lives who are like that. We never know what will set them off or when it might happen. That gives them power to control us as we tread lightly on eggshells.
They are the Jay and Daisy Buchanan of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel “The Great Gatsby.” Near the end of the saga, narrator Nick Carraway tells how they like to break things, then retreat back into the wealth until the next time.
Our havoc makers may not have money, but they will retreat back behind whatever barriers they have created to protect themselves.
The antidote to this misery is to create genuine meaning in our lives. It begins when we choose to keep drama out of our lives. We can do that, but it can be hard to keep our decisions.
The next question is what positive thing or things are we going to create or embrace that will give our lives a true sense of purpose.
French artist Claude Monet. He created magnificent paintings, and in time became wealthy from them. What recharged his emotional batteries and gave meaning to his life was his garden s filled with water lilies.
We can find examples all around us of people who have devoted themselves to finding and maintaining a sense of purpose.
Go forth, find that one true thing that brings meaning to your life, focus on it and follow Pascal’s advice: stay quietly in your own room.
