Money. I have always had enough to meet all my needs and most of my ‘basic’ wants. But never have I had enough of it to take care of all the numerous fancies that regularly cross my mind and heart.
Until sometime ago I used to believe that the very rich do indeed fulfill all desires and therefore at least in that context must be very happy. After all don’t they say that you can never be too thin or too rich?
And then I met, after a gap of a few years, a couple I had known well. The couple had seen their annual incomes climb from being tens of millions of rupees a year to the stratospheric heights of thousand of millions. Chiefly as a result of the commodities boom that so characterized the period preceding 2008.
As Jyoti and I drove down, for a dinner appointment, to the seven-star hotel they were staying in, I looked forward to seeing the glowing transformation in looks and well-being that I thought immense wealth must bring.
As we drove back home that night I was in a mild state of shock.
We had a met a couple of individuals in despair. They had flown in that morning in their private jet and had shopped all day for diamonds without having the time for lunch. As they gobbled down dinner the worry lines on their rather haggard faces only underscored their talk:
“Of needy relatives who expected them to help out (can you imagine the greed!). Of cars costing thirty million rupees having been driven all of 300 kms in a year (where after all were the roads in this benighted country where one can drive such a car?) Of the armies of servants who ran their various homes across the world and who could not seem to fully conceal their feeling of unwanted intrusion when the masters came in, after a gap of months, for a short stay. And what of the Naxalite threat? Well the police and the security were taking care of that, though can you imagine even the police had to be paid what amounted to a regular salary? Of course, when they travelled, the private jet allowed then to fly over all that danger crawling on the ground though sometimes, one must admit, the weather they flew in seemed just as dangerous.”
What happened? Does really big money always do this? What is money?
At its core money is supposed to represent human effort.
Money represents a day’s physical labor or an hour’s use of skills honed over decades or the complex organizational skills and risk-taking abilities that is required to coordinate the efforts of large numbers of people.
However somewhere along the line (a few seconds after it was invented I suspect) money shed its representative context making it an entity by itself.
Individuals could accumulate it without any reference to the human effort they had exerted and to close the increasingly vicious cycle, they could then use it to distort the value of the efforts of other humans so that they could accumulate more money.
However human effort is an integral part of nature. Centuries of a system that distorts the value of an integral part of the web of life produces negative results. The increased level of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere and the resultant greenhouse effect are measurable and now much discussed and debated.
The increasing concentration of the value of the efforts of many in the hands of view is just as dangerous.
And just as those of us who have the largest carbon footprint become fat and sick, so also those of us who increasingly hoard and distort the value of the efforts of an increasing number of our fellow human beings become, at the core, miserable.
Not everybody who makes big money is a distorter. There is many a rich individual who treats big money as a reservoir of value to be dammed and converted to power that gives increased value back to others. In doing this, these worthies earn true respect and the happiness of quiet self-esteem.
It is only when money is seen as a possession for personal use that big money distorts not just the human community at large but very visibly the “possessor”.
Money represents a force of nature which when distorted produces disaster.
Pink Floyd, as is their wont, rocked to the true value of money even as they mouthed cynically the twisted role it currently plays in most human activity:
Money, get away
Get a good job with more pay and your O.K.
Money it's a gas
Grab that cash with both hands and make a stash
New car, caviar, four star daydream,
Think I'll buy me a football team
Money get back
I'm all right Jack keep your hands off my stack.
Money it's a hit
Don't give me that do goody good bullshit
I'm in the hi-fidelity first class traveling set
And I think I need a Lear jet
Money it's a crime
Share it fairly but don't take a slice of my pie
Money so they say
Is the root of all evil today
But if you ask for a rise it's no surprise that they're giving none away
