Rex

"The Quest for Wealth and Identity: A Journey of Discovery" Despite being in her seventies, Lena's mother possessed not only beauty but also a sharp mind. With the certainty of a woman who had seen it all, she declared to her daughter that she would not go anywhere and that wealth was merely a creation of boredom and spiritual emptiness, and those who doubted this would naturally be consumed by it. Lena, intrigued by her mother's words, pressed for answers and vowed to prove her wrong. Little did she know that this quest had haunted her mother since her late husband's obsession with becoming rich had infected her as well. At the airport, Lena eagerly observed the people, potentially her future travel companions, and became fascinated by their ordinary concerns. It begged the question: what is wealth, and what does it mean to be wealthy? In Lena's understanding, those who flew on airplanes automatically belonged to the elusive group of lucky individuals. While flights drained one's finances, they were not essential for life. However, in her perception, the rich were obligated to make extravagant and irrational gestures. When money was not a concern, one could indulge in delightful foolishness. One fellow passenger never parted with his accordion, as Lena noticed. "Everything breathes wealth there! They use toilet paper in kilometers!" she overheard during the landing. Although Lena failed to see the profound connection between an accordion, toilet paper, and wealth, the senselessness of it aligned perfectly with her personal hypothesis about the hidden realm of the rich. In her mind, her upcoming trip abroad was akin to a critical mission. She intended to discover, settle everything, return with her mother, and bid farewell to poverty and desolation. In-flight, Lena pieced together fragments of conversations, snippets of information about the country and specific locations she had eagerly directed her steps towards, her soul wide open to embrace a new reality. She learned that the people she was heading to — the Vladimirs and Natalies — lived not wisely and sagely as their Russian names suggested but somehow differently. It was precisely this mystical "difference" that Lena longed to uncover, here and now. With every thought spinning in her mind, Lena first and foremost listened to herself, to the inner voice that guided her in this quest for wealth and identity.