The Spendthrift and the Miser Appear Opposite but are the Same - (1158)

Spendthrift

In the case of a spendthrift, such a person wastes their money ending up in misery.

Miser

In the case of a miser, such a person works long and hard and saves as much as possible, and naturally by cause and effect acquires a good pile of money. They too waste and end up in misery.

Waste and Misery

Both the spendthrift and miser up in physical misery. The spendthrift by having spent money on luxuries and fleeting whims and the miser by having saved and not spent.

Both the spendthrift and miser end up wasting. The spendthrift by having spent money frivolously, and the miser by wasting life and energy working. Often misers die with that money still in their bank and it goes to the state or to some distant relative that spends it like a spendthrift.

The spendthrift pleases the senses and the emotions in fulfilling whims, and the miser pleases the senses seeing the numbers in one’s account grow and the emotion having. Both feel lacking, the miser feels lack and hence falls into greed of wanting more because the miser never has enough and the spendthrift feels empty and so spends to fill the void but feels unhappy because it can never be filled by buying things, just as the void in the miser can never be filled with money.

Poverty Both

Both end in spiritual poverty.

End (1158).