Bloody Money

First of all, I’m not paid to write against money at all. I’m not paid for writing in its favour, either. I’m simply writing it in pursuit of my personal knowledge about money. And I’m here to share a few things that I have found so far, thinking, and hoping that they will help the reader to prepare a little wiser for the coming future. It is not a mystery that whatever the future is, it is coming with a lot of problems and more questions which will make us doubt the functionality of our very existence. We’ll need to set up the grounds and strengthen our foundations once again to face the difficult and apparently, insurmountable.

Now, we’ve got to refresh our idea of what money is. Back then, when none of us were around (when the days were simple, maybe?), people still used to trade things. Because trading was as the only thing that connected two types of civilizations. There weren’t many types of civilizations. It was mostly one. But people inhabited different parts of the world and became different settlements. Now, these settlements needed resources and so they sought help from other settlements.

In exchange, they traded some of the things of their own that the other parties thought were valuable to them. But as the number of people increased drastically, it became more difficult to keep a record of things. To avoid disproportionate trading, some standard physical thing needed an existence. So, money is the concept that bridges the gap between things of different kinds and maintains the balance of inflow and outflow of material objects.

Money has the simple objective: to keep number of things and currency in balance and in the state of natural flow (towards its increment), or in other words, be useful with certain freedom to its owner and user. I can put this in an analogy. The words when infused with trust, become relations. And when money is infused with trust, stock markets come into picture.

As more money starts pooling into the big picture, consumerism slowly starts taking over the simple human mind. People naturally start envying other people of their possessions, belongings and they start wishing that they had these things too in their possession. This seemingly healthy competition quickly converts into the deadly combination of competition along with consumption frenzy. People just can’t get enough of the things they buy. They purchase so many things that they have to sell or throw away some of the things they don’t use in the first place. You can buy things. As many as you want. But you can never buy as much space as you want. Certainly not for very long time. Here the slavery in the pursuit of money is created.

We can ask people why they earn money. We’ll get several responses like this: To buy a new house, to buy a new car, because it’s cool to have a lot of money, because my neighbour has something so I want to have it too, it measures the prestige a person may have, the list of reasons goes on. Although it gives a boost to the economy of a nation, it is in my opinion very unhealthy for smooth functioning of a society. I have seen people go lengths just to have one more bundle of cash in their pockets. I will not list the crimes here, since it will divert the entire conversation to a different ballpark. But we really need to focus on the majority of the population which is trapped under the stress of earning more money, saving and multiplying it.

Let’s try to analyze the importance of money briefly here. I will not claim that money is total load of crap. Because then I’ll be a hypocrite trying to tell you that money is nothing, through an article published online using a personal laptop! I have absolutely no intentions of being called a hypocrite. To be able to gain access to a massive audience and maintain that access, you need money. To fulfil your basic needs such as food, clothing, shelter, you need money. In order to buy things that are really necessary for yourself and your family and your house, you need to have money.

You can do the same exercise by thinking what is extremely necessary and then assess what things are there you need money for. There may be things that without money cannot be achieved. But that certainly does not mean that money is everything. We must never parameterize the reality by a certain circumstance we just tackled.

We always come across a statement, “Money cannot buy happiness”. This is partially true, partially false. If we translate happiness into having a few things, and that can be bought with money, then the argument holds true. Otherwise, it is false. When you are stuck into a situation from which only humans can take you out safely, you cannot translate that into any amount of money. Because time is of essence, here. Also, you cannot equate or interpret time with money all the time.

In business, economics, and mathematics, time might be interpreted in terms of money. Elsewhere, it cannot be done so. Situations and circumstances rule almost all parts of your lives. You might as well be reading this very article because the situation has deemed like this to happen. Hence, I would like to make an argument that money is now a complex human construct which cannot be evaluated on the basis of a couple of things or quotes by famous people. It exists in a superposition of being important and unimportant at the same time. The smart person should be able to solve this superposition in order to function well in life, and be as less dependent on money as possible.

The proportion of the things that money can buy will outweigh the things that cannot be bought or sold. If there are 99.99% of things that can be traded using money, the rest of the things that cannot be traded rule the big part mentioned above. Because you can buy stationery items, books, courses, education. You cannot buy intelligence, diligence, hardwork, inquisitiveness. You can buy medicines, drugs, supplements, expensive foods, pay huge hospital bills. But you cannot buy the health which is inherent. The health has to be maintained. The things mentioned for health are supportive, not the primary ones, therefore the primary health cannot be bought.

You can say that you keep employees based on salary, incentives, etc. but you cannot buy discipline in your fellows. Either they have it or they don’t. Simple. You can go to events to socialize in clubs, parties, concerts, gatherings, seminars, workshops. But you cannot buy friends. You cannot buy family, companionship, partner. You either have them, find them in some future, or you will simply die without these. This is our reality.

We can buy illusions, but we have to be fortunate enough such that someone will bring us the picture of reality and disillusionment. This cannot be bought and sold. You cannot buy the beginning of the life and ending of the life. They come to you naturally. You can be all rich and wealthy, but you can never buy humility, gratitude, politeness, kindness, humanity, integrity, and every virtue there is for betterment of oneself and the entire world. THESE CANNOT BE BOUGHT AND SOLD.

This was my argument about the tool called as money. I would really like to understand your view on this and increase my knowledge where I’m falling short. But I’m certain of one thing. You can use a tool for your convenience or you can abuse it and make it a weapon for destruction. It is your choice and power of your reasoning. And this, my friend, cannot be bought by money.