Money and Worth

Money and Worth

Money and Worth have never been and will never be the same thing. We naturally know this. Yet we have to remind ourselves of this consistently over and over again.

Money or currency overall is a flawed representation of Worth. This is mostly because Money represents an abstract system that is hermetically closed upon itself. There is also a system of Worth, which is much infinitely more complex. It ties down with so many instances of the real world that it is inseparable from it. In other words, whereas humanity without money is very much possible and exists for infinite amounts of time back in past time and forth into future, the system of money is but a temporary occurrence.

Occasionally, Money and Worth intersect. These are the moments, when a certain activity, which is of worth for humanity attracts a certain monetary value. It also works the other way round – e.g. when monetary power is stripped from a venture that is harmful to humanity.

An interesting parallel can be drawn between money and language as systems. The famous linguist Ferdinand de Saussure was the first one to point out that the relationship between the linguistic sign and the signified entity is arbitrary. In other words, there is no rational relationship between any word and the object of reality which the word stands for. The words “tree” or “bottle” point at “something” from the real world but this thing comes in many forms and flavors. When we hear “tree” we all probably immediately think of a living being that has roots, leaves and grows in nature. Yet there are syntactic trees, grammatical trees, genetic trees and so on. These “trees” take a certain aspect of a “tree” while disregarding others. Another obvious discrepancy is the discordance between sound and meaning. Studies show that we associate certain human qualities and emotions with specific sounds. If a “tree” wasn’t called this but a “vact”, we’d definitely feel different about the concept. Yet everyday language disregards this. We try to convey meaning through language disregarding the outer shape of the words. The only exception to this so far has been poetic language. Poetry happens when meaning and sound co-operate instead of competing. The first instances of written narratives providing the basis for European Culture, Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, have been written in poetic language and not in prose.

In summary, Language relates to Meaning encoded in reality in a way similar to the relation between Money and Worth. The latter is encoded in reality and calls for its own discovery. One is a big, complex, all-encompassing system which is hard to grasp and comprehend (reality, worth, meaning), the other is a singular, simplistic and hermetic system that only sporadically manages to adequately unveil its underneath. The resulting discrepancy is what we call chaos, the hardships of life and faulty communication, which claims a lot of stoicism on our part.

With regards to the remote future of humanity, I am an optimist and I believe we should all be. Yet, as contemporaries of this day and age, we need to focus on the Now. The current paradigm and cryptocurrency are making the discrepancy between money and worth more obvious than it has been. The net is flooded by success stories of generation Z-ers who have gained momentum within the cryptocurrency system and have accumulated a fortune within a very short amount of time. At the same time, there is still an ongoing parallel realm in this same world which is the one modern slavery, i.e. people who are spending their whole life force in the name of a fraction of a dollar. The seeming injustice in comparing these two realms originates in Money being a common denominator for both realms. Cryptomillionaires can exchange their winnings into fiat-money and exchange it again for things and privileges from the real “world”. The corresponding values on both sides don’t seem to match. So the question is, how can we make both ends meet?

How some of us seem to get around easily while others give more than humanly possible for a fraction of the value?

There are several answers to this. In the tone of my previous argumentation, most of them aren’t new, yet it never hurts to reiterate what is true. To come back to the Money versus Language analogy – Meaning is given while Language is man-made. Worth is given, whereas Money is man-made. Man-made things serve a certain instrumental purpose until they wear off and higher means of comprehending reality are established. Language will probably stick around much longer than money as it is much closer to the way humans are. It reflects more aspects of our human reality than money does. We are already aware of Language’s boundaries – as the saying goes, where language ends, there begins poetic language; and where poetic language stops, there begins music.

There is a constant about life’s seeming dualities which attests that to overcome an apparent division (disbalance or injustice) we need to come across a paradox first. Kierkegaard once said: “Marry and you will regret it, don’t marry and you will regret it too”. Each one of two options leads to the same result. Yet there is always a bit of happiness in the ultimate unhappiness and a bit of despair in the greatest joy. The Journey of the Hero, which a metaphor for our existence, reminds us that we need to fully focus on the current dragon to progress, yet never lose ourselves, as there is always a next dragon and a next level. The tale “The Nightingale and the Rose” reminds us that a sacrifice is not a guarantee for success. When a sacrifice proves worthless, we can finally see through the foolishness of a sacrifice that is hopeless and we progress to the next level. Where sacrifices are just an instrument in the game among others but not the end goal. The goal of the game is winning, yet the win-lose duality tends to prove absurd too: a victory can have an aftertaste of failure while a failure can lead to an exponential growth.

Given all this, we should operate from a place of Worth and Meaning at all times as these are steady parameters. They last long-term. We already inhabit priceless bodies and they remain so, no matter how old or diminished we get. There might be a price tag on organs on the black market but there cannot be a price tag for life. Science can replicate a plant seed, no artificial seed will ever be able to sprout. We may know several ways to kill a sproutable seed but not a single one to do the reverse. There is no need in it and no Worth in it. There is already an overabundance of life, which we are here to comprehend - not to strenuously reproduce.

The concept of money has been a rational one in its pure shape. It has been a reasoned step following the division of labor. If person X is growing apples and person Y is growing pears then it arises a need for a third, abstract currency which makes the exchange of both products easier. However, the key lies in the difference between “abstract” and “concrete”. The abstract idea has been a good one but the concrete one has been put into practice in the shape of coins, paper and other tangible entities which made additional, undesirable features possible. For example, money could be stored. Money could also be used to make more money. The hoarding of money is, as every person with a basic financial knowledge knows, a hurdle to the economic system. Money that is passively stored somewhere and used to gaining power and privilege over others who are lacking it, is detrimental to the currency itself. Paradoxically, at the hour of birth of money, these additional features were still small, marginal and unimportant. Nowadays, these trait(or)s define the system. In a way, there is nothing new under the sun. Communism is another example of an okay abstraction with a faulty implementation in reality. This is why many economists dream of interest-free money that rapidly loses its value when not in circulation.

We have to keep in mind that there is nothing spiritual about money. We can attract worth or meaning by focusing on them. Yes! In the hierarchy of systems, however, any monetary system is a low-order one. It cooperates with other hermetic systems such as mathematics, physics and coincides to a certain extent with psychology. Low-order systems as such can never fully comprehend or sabotage high-order systems such as: nature, the human spirit or faith. It has already been said that science will never be able to prove the invisible because anything that is a subject to evidence can be a subject to counterevidence.

In all of its seeming and tangible stability, money has not been able to transcend its historical volatility – it can lose its value and it can happen overnight.

The bottom line – look for Worth. Currency is a byproduct. Contrary to the saying, money does stink. Money acquired through harmful means equals negative worth. The next time you are wondering why money is scarce, try and question how you are acquiring it. Does your doing in this world create positive value? If you can’t get straight away from a harmful situation, set an intention. And nourish it by helping others around you in small ways and fighting for value. Money can be printed infinitely - value is created in the moment and can’t be reproduced. Money can be lost, value is here to stay. Also: helping doesn’t mean you need to sacrifice something you are lacking yourself in the first place. Sacrifices are sometimes inevitable, yet there is no need for them on daily basis. Give a lot from what you have in abundance. There is nothing spiritual to it. It is pure arithmetic.

Applying all that to Steemit: it is okay if you came for the money. Stay for the worth. Provided that you are driven by a need to give voice to what is unique to you, a creator can be born.