"Money is the root of all evil" - well, not quite. Dig deeper and you'll find that actually the root of all evil is the Ego - which money and power feed. Money buys power, which is used to buy more power, which is used to extract more money... Once you're a billionaire, the only egos you are interesting in impressing are those belonging to your peers. To them, there's no bigger trophy with which to flaunt your ego than human minds. I refer here to Elon Musk who spent $44 billion buying Twitter to shape it to his will, as well as nonagenarian media owner Rupert Murdoch and their like. Once you have so much money that another private jet, another Caribbean island or another 300ft yacht brings you no more incremental pleasure, then warping the minds of millions becomes a goal. Egos that don't know where to stop - the root of so much evil. Putin - maybe the richest of them all - is destroying hundreds of thousands of human lives to create a legacy for himself among Russians.
To avoid a world distorted by out-of-control egos, I'd propose the motto, "Aim to live in comfort; aim not to live in luxury".
Money is in essence a call on other people. You have money, you can get people to do what you want them to do. Work in your factory, write you some code, sell you some land, create some art for you.
Back in the days of the first dot-com boom, there emerged the notion among start-up founders of 'fuck-you money' - then said to be around $10m - the net amount of cash you needed on your account to be able to say 'fuck you' to anyone. You're made; you're financially independent for the rest of your life (and your children and grandchildren will never have to work a hand's turn).
Today's Egos will demand much more than that $10m. I, however, require much less. Being financially independent as early on in life as possible is a sound financial goal to aim for. Owing money to banks for the home in which you live (which in theory they can repossess should you lose income) is not comfortable. Living in your own place (ideally without monthly service charges) is comfortable. Worse still is owing banks and credit-card corporations money for consumer loans taken out to buy all manner of needless fripperies and assorted bollocks that all too soon break down and end up in landfill.
The road to financial independence will be much shorter if you don't piss money away on unnecessary things. Not owning a car, for example, is a massive, whole-life, financial boost. Not flying off on a holiday or two every year is another. Thousands of consumer baubles can easily be foregone over a lifetime, your wallet fuller and your home less cluttered as a result. I do, however, aim to eat well, healthily and tastily; I'd happily pay three or four times more per kilo of a decent artisan cheese than something mass-produced, bland and rubbery.
The pursuit of money which is ultimately frittered away on unnecessary things gets you onto a treadmill of over-work, anxiety and stress. You are still uncomfortable, even though you're surrounded by material goodies. New car, new furniture, new clothes, new household electronics and appliances - and mounting debt.
"I work in a job I don't like to buy things I don't need to impress people I don't know" is where this ends up. And mindless consumption is endangering the ecosystem that civilisation requires to survive. Look at the lifelong greenhouse-gas emissions generated by the manufacture, use and disposal of items that you bought that weren't really necessary but you just wanted on a whim. Now multiply that by eight billion, plus the number of all the people now dead who've lived since the Industrial Revolution, and there we have the cause of man-made climate change. Our mammalian impulse to rise up the status hierarchy might prove our undoing.
But this must be a life in balance.
I don't believe that you can focus on the Eternal and Infinite if you are living in discomfort - in pain, in hunger, in poverty, in stress. Money is needed to lift one out of discomfort, into a life of ease - and then, having attained material comfort, the mind should focus on the numinous and on the metaphysical questions - seeking purpose, and in that find human fulfilment. You need time to focus on what's most important in life, time to meditate, walk, exercise and contemplate in the search for meaning.
Not on chasing the next million bucks, or flaunting one's Ego with ostentatious displays of wealth.
"But Jesus answereth again, and saith unto them; Children, how hard is it for them that trust in riches to enter into the kingdom of God! It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God." [Mark 10:25] Jesus was on to something there.
Lent 2022: Day 36
Losing sight of God
Lent 2021: Day 36
One life is not enough
Lent 2020: Day 36
Accounting for talent
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