Minimalist Chronicles: Money

The philosopher Diogenes was eating bread and lentils for supper. He was seen by the philosopher Aristippus, who lived comfortably by flattering the king. Said Aristippus, "If you would learn to be subservient to the king you would not have to live on lentils." Said Diogenes, "Learn to live on lentils and you will not have to be subservient to the king." 

Chasing money for the sake of having more money, I believe, is a losing game. One only chases money as a means to the end if there is a genuine feeling of lacking. In situations of extreme poverty, one chases basic living necessities that money can potentially provide (but in these situations it is not a fat wallet one craves, it’s the food that a fat wallet would immediately be transferred into).

However, the vicious cycle of chasing money for the mere sake of having more tends to require labor for someone else in some fashion. A higher paycheck requires a higher ranking, and that may entail more hours, worse treatment, and more work drudgery.

Worse yet, money without purpose can never fill the void in the chaser. I would know. I’ve chased money to the top and consequently hit the bottom.

One chases for more money, and maybe gets more, and believes that with this extra cash there are added options, or even added freedoms. And the human tendency is to use this better income to spend more, to “upgrade.” Maybe in an acquisition the spender experiences a moment of euphoria; it feels as though the gaping wound is finally stitched together.

But the stitches don’t hold and the wound’s bleeding slowly accelerates. The feeling of inadequacy returns, and the wound requires more money, better stitches, a better doctor… just to slow the bleeding.

Consumerism breeds feelings of inadequacy, so it seems inevitable that more spending breeds more dissatisfaction.

Without purpose, money is a means to damnation. With purpose, I believe it’s rare that heavy spending (and with it, subservience) is necessary.

I do not say this from observation. This is my experience, from personally attempting to solve my problems via spending.

Similarly, I believe that chasing money for the sake of “total stability” is a losing game. One can never have true stability; life is too short and too volatile to allow for permanent sailing on calm waters. A quest for stability will inevitably deplete a person of happiness, and possibly of sanity. Life begins and ends with a struggle; a struggle with other sperm cells at the beginning, and a struggle for one final gasp of oxygen at the end. It’s only natural that struggle would be a prevalent human condition through the middle.

There will always be a disrupter of stability lurking in the mist ahead. A heart murmur, a disease, the death of a loved one, the loss of a home, the collapse of an economy, the drastic changing of an environment. Having a higher income may alleviate some symptoms, but life is ultimately a fatal condition. In my opinion, it’s more merrily spent avoiding the quest for immortality.

I believe there is a certain relief one can have by accepting chaos as a necessary condition to the human experience. Doing so minimizes one’s paranoia over the future, as well as an unhealthy dwelling over the past. A few deep breaths, bereft of technology and external voices, are all it takes to realize that the present is quite likely okay.

Money is not the cure for chaos, nor is it the bridge to stability.

I think of a recent article I read in which Paris Hilton stated she’d be “satisfied when she finally becomes a billionaire.” Therein lies the problem with money: there’s no actual such things as “enough of it.”

And I think of all the people who told me that they’d be satisfied when they reached a tiny fraction of that number, only to reach that number and decide that their problems would be solved with twice that amount.

Money tends to move goal posts.

Worse yet, it tends to be external forces who convince us that more money is necessary.

I’m not a life coach, but I suspect we would be healthier to prioritize our purpose. Relationships, family, friends, contributions. Money, to me, is an effect of contribution.

Purpose in itself is a difficult term. The modern western world often defines purpose as “career”, or a “dream job”, or “the perfect degree.” That seems to me to be complete nonsense, a corporate illusion.

I believe one can find purpose through many occupations and interactions, through many tasks and puzzles, through many hobbies and activities, through many travels, and many conflicts.

I think of a Chinese traffic conductor on a busy Changchun street I often crossed. Day in and day out, he smiled and said hello in Chinese. And if he saw me, he said hello in English and waved. He had such a mundane and draining job to most observers, but he approached it with zest and passion.

His purpose was to make people smile, and he seemed infinitely happier to me than any successful corporate type I’ve met. The job, to him, was just a vehicle for his purpose.

I therefore don’t think it’s a matter of “minimizing” money, but rather deemphasizing its importance in our lives.

To make people smile like that Chinese traffic conductor is a purpose that would fulfill a lot of people in search of meaning, many of whom likely have much more money than the conductor.

He was happy because he had something that many seek but never get: enough.

To accept ourselves today as enough…

Along Mountain Roads: Bikepacking Trip 1

First bikepacking trip complete! It was grueling, but worth it. The only lingering injury was a pinched nerve in my left hand, which I got on day 1 from gripping the handlebars too tight while riding uphill for long periods of time.

The Nothing

“Beware the barrenness of a busy life.” - Socrates

I had a fun conversation this week with a colleague about the 80’s film The Neverending Story. In the days that followed I found myself thinking about the evil that threatened to destroy the magical world of Fantasia, “The Nothing.”

The Nothing was tied to the human world. In the film it resembled a black hole that swallowed and essentially deleted from existence all of the mystical lands and creatures of Fantasia. It was directly correlated with the adult lack of imagination and failure to dream or read books.

With the film having been released decades ago and the book it’s based on long before that, I wonder if The Nothing would have easily triumphed over Fantasia in today’s world. I suspect it would.

I recalled a friend of mine’s toddler who sat in the back seat while we drove to a museum, the toddler’s eyes glued to her tablet screen. How will such a toddler, always enveloped by dopamine-inducing stimulus, ever have time to imagine? It is through boredom that creativity grows. It seems that The Nothing now swallows many of us before we are even old enough to read in the first place.

The Nothing makes us busy, and in its clutter it makes us barren. With more websites to browse, more things to buy, more emails to answer, more shows to watch, more tasks to complete, The Nothing envelopes us in inadequacy. And at the core of this inadequacy is money. Therefore, money is at the core of The Nothing.

The toddler therefore abandons nature in favor of WiFi.

On the other end of the age spectrum is the retiree. Consumed with planning, the 65-year-old retiree is concerned almost entirely with projections. Projections of lifespan, projections of benefits, projections of health. All of these projections gravitate around money.

Whereas they once fretted for their job security and bonuses, retirees soon fret for health security. The primary question of the consumerist model does not fully disappear: Do I have enough?

Gone are simple days spent being. With money having consumed the retiree’s every thought, every worry, and every bit of motivation, for years upon years, the modern consumerist model has completely devoured the retiree’s spirit. Wholly dependent on the system for what the retiree now values most, which is predictability and stability, the retiree no longer focuses so much on what he or she deems trivial: things like creation and meditation. What money, what insurance, after all, are supplied by creativity? Instead, the retiree’s focus is on wills, on healthcare, and on potential future nursing homes.

Burn me at the stake, I say, before sending me to a damned nursing home!

Free from the shackles of work, the retiree is shackled to insurance and rife with anxiety over pension plans. “Will I get my promotion” is quickly placed with, “But will it get me through?”

The what ifs of the working world subside, and the what ifs of the healthcare world infect.

It is no wonder then that so many retirees struggle to find purpose, when in fact there is a thousand years’ worth of purpose in a single ray of sunshine. The retiree’s sole focus for so many decades was on “finally having security” that the act of retirement only breeds more insecurity: a lack of passion, a renewed anxiety over wellbeing, and a focus solely on money.

The retiree, consumed by being busy, struggles to breathe. He or she will therefore often find new things to be busy over, and there is great risk in these things being too superficial to live long for.

The focus for so many decades was on having enough money that money can become the retiree’s primary value. It will not simply dissipate because one is retired. It will instead shapeshift into forms more sinister. The Nothing will prevail.

And in between the toddler that is introduced to a consumerist model of screens, and the retiree fully consumed by the consumerist model of funeral planning and pension spending, are those lost in between, navigating the unknown, figuring out what is truly valuable to them.

Will The Nothing finish them off, or will they learn to read again?

It is easy to be rendered cynical by the hoard, but it is still relatively easy to defeat The Nothing.

Take a moment to breathe. Do nothing, just stare and breathe. Let your mind wander where it may. Don’t look at any screens or the wasteful notifications that blink from them. Don’t prepare anything or mark anything or clean anything or throw anything away. Was it easy? Then do the same, but for ten minutes. Then try an hour. Look at a plant, or an animal. Let your mind wander. Then when you’re done, pick up a book and read a few pages.

The Nothing just shrank a bit.

Rule: Don’t Chase

Being told I have to obey rules can give me an ill feeling, maybe because I usually associate rules with school. The modern school system is more focused on molding and shaping thoughts than enhancing them. It’s also more driven to produce perfect workers than to produce modern intellects and abstract thinkers.

Rules, however, can add value to our lives. Rules are required for any civil contract to form between people. Without civil contracts, we devolve into a form of Darwinian savagery. The constraint brought forth by rules can allow for liberation; rules can focus us on what matters while blocking what doesn’t.

Give a film a time limit and the story can be told concisely.

Tell a classroom of students to listen and respect one another, and each individual’s thoughts can be expressed freely, and contribute to the search for a greater meaning.

Tell an employee not to work on weekends and this person’s wellbeing will be extended.

Sometimes, but not always, rules should be unmalleable. The Ten Commandments provide moral tenets that universally prevent the inner destruction of a culture. It is the absolutism of them that has brought forth much of modern civilization. Some rules, therefore, must be permanent.

If an individual does not set forth personal rules and boundaries, that person invites others to set rules and boundaries for him or her. And these rules will likely not be to the benefit of the individual. Therefore, by neglecting rules, one invites tyranny into his or her life.

I have a rule for myself, a primary rule, based on my own experiences and struggles. Maybe it can or should be a rule for you. It is not a rule I have always obeyed. In fact, it’s a rule I’ve often neglected, and when I’ve neglected it I’ve paid severe consequences.

Rule: Do not chase unless it’s for fun.

• Do not chase material things, because even ownership is ephemeral. At some point in the future, a time you cannot possibly determine, you will die, and a loved one will be forced to either rid your belongings, take them, or sell them to someone else.

• Do not chase material things because the chase will carve a hole in you, and the hole will only widen as the chase continues. To chase a thing means to assume that ownership of said thing will fix something broken in you. After a time, you will realize that you are no better or worse off with your newly aqcuired object, and you will chase another. The chase will drain you of time, money, and individuality. The objects you purchase will not relieve you of any burden, but rather will add new burdens. You will fret over them breaking and degrading, and you will scramble to find places to put them.

• Do not chase status, because to do so assumes that status brings you self-worth. It assumes that your current status is not worthy of being. Because there is always a higher status than your own, this chase cannot possibly satisfy you. Social media presents the epitome of this danger. One can never have enough likes, and there are illimitable people to compare yourself to, if you choose to compare yourself to others.

• Do not chase the validation or approval of people because you subject yourself to their judgment. The basis of this mentality is that your own wellbeing is dependent on the whims of another’s opinion of you. There is nothing more dangerous than giving someone else this sort of power over your health. If you chase a job promotion to the extent that you subject your sanity to the whims of a boss, you enslave yourself to that boss. If you chase a lover to the extent that you place your livelihood on the whims of their approval of you, you invalidate your own self-worth.

Games are another matter entirely. To chase for fun is to enjoy a moment and accept a potential thrill. What, then, is it okay to chase? Some examples:

• Chase the queen on a chess board.

• Watch a child chase butterflies and rabbits. Can you do the same?

• Chase green lights while cycling through a city.

• Chase your dog if it won’t give up a ball in a game of fetch.

• Play tag, or baseball, or basketball. All involve a chase of some sort.

To ease the sense of lack in your life requires you to stop chasing material things. Chase something if it’s fun. Be brave enough to let others chase the rest.