Money and means
Do we understand everything around us?
Let me make it simpler: Do we understand anything at all?
As our skin gets older and our eyesight weaker, we ask these sort of questions to ourselves, not anybody else specifically. Enough of looking for clues outside. The world we claim to be a part of shrinks because of the sheer weight of such doubts. There are no clear answers, yes. Never was. Never will be. We can only scrape the surface of reality with the nails of our mind, only to find later that the reality has changed. The reason why this happens is, while we keep thinking that times are changing, we forget to acknowledge the underwhelming aspect of us changing alongside.
Which brings us to the role money plays in our consciousness. To put it very subtly, it doesn’t exist. And such is the power of norm that our society creates whatever necessary—imaginary or perfunctory — to ensure that the society functions smoothly. The bait is strong with this one. You can’t decide the rules of a club you can’t possibly do without, especially when you’re born in the club and then have to play along to get by.
This could very well be the reason why a lot of our people tend to equate success with wealth. The more you gain, the lesser are your chances of being deprived of the basic stuff: food, housing, clothes, etc. The basics don’t alter under any given situation. Very seldom do we come across stories where a rich person has taken a sharp detour from the set rules of engagement—healthier (not necessarily tastier) food, bigger houses, faster cars, fancier clothes, etc. A norm is in place because it’s entrenched within our psyche that we need to have more money to lead a more fulfilling life.
Which might be true.
Which might also be false.
The difference between truth and lie here is rich folks have a choice whereas the poor souls don’t. Although the fight is intense and the advantaged class wants to get wealthier as well as more powerful, the disadvantaged class isn’t giving up on the aforementioned norm. They choose to continue to be in the club because somewhere deep inside them, they know they have it in them to make it. Perhaps a generation or two later, after years of suffering, they might just make it. Only time will convey the verdict. In the meanwhile, the battle intensifies and the true winner is neither the rich nor the poor as the role is circumstantial and quite interchangeable; anybody can replace anybody—the rich can become poorer and the poor can become richer. Money is the true winner at the end of the debate; a psychological construct placed by the severe grinds of history.
On a closer inspection, one can also notice why money manages to change people. More often than not, more people than none. And when that happens, money wins. The trick is to stay humble and understand that some things exists as a medium, not the destination itself. Money, for all its magical properties, is here to make life comfortable. It doesn’t have what it takes to make life meaningful. And that makes it a sore loser.
