What is a treasure? Something precious, valuable. If I find a treasure, it will be an chest, the sort that pirates use in cartoons. It will be filled with gold and valuable gems, right? I may be able to take the gold and gems to a local jeweler and have him buy all that stuff. I will want to convert the heavy yellow metal and the sparkly stones to money, money, money!!!
I haven't quite decided what I might buy with the unexpected increase in my funds. Maybe I will just sit and look at my account, feeling satisfied. These days, I find that increased bank balances don't mean that much to me. Extra zeros don't do it for me. I am thinking more about other treasures. For instance, I have lived a life and it has been a good one. But, it has only been one life. That is all I get, I suppose, but with imagination and help, I get to peek into other lives, lives that I didn't have but would have enjoyed.
I might have enjoyed being a really good ballet dancer or a trumpeter. When I see Maurice Andre stand up in front of an audience, I envy his talent and composure and skill. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RLDF8OeD-hc
There are many other lives and experiences that sound interesting. There are achievements that I am never going to achieve. My doctor tells me that I am not going to give birth. I won't be a professional athlete or a mesmerizing actor.
I have been working with a Learning in Retirement group for a couple of years now. The job of the committee I am on is to locate interesting people in our area that can talk to us about lives and subjects. The presentations that result are treasures. Not old pirate chests but new ideas and long-range views that can only be provided by people with experience and insight.
Take a small city with its government, police force, local university, local community college, retirees from all sorts of places and occupations. You will find there heros and heroines of all sorts. Not just the kind who conquer enemies but experts in history, art, genealogy, farming, parenting, politics. People who can tell what it has been like to save lives, bring comfort to the bereaved, raise up businesses and put them to rest, people who can offer treasures of thought, memory, prediction.
