On Money

I was reading some-time back
An article in “Times of India”
containing interviews of industrialists
on state-of-Pune Roads.
The sum and substance as I recollect,
was we must have good roads in the city
as it is bad for the image, travel time increases, injuries increase, etc.
The key message appears to be,
if we want our city to attract investment
then we must pay attention to infrastructure.

May be I am over generalizing,
but isn’t the same thought process at work, at the national level.
Look good, (may be even be good?!)
so that an appropriate “investor” finds you attractive
so that he/she INVESTS.

Even using sustainable energy
has become good business
after oil prices have gone through the roof.

Again money is driving the change
but are the fundamental patterns of greed changing?

The only “working” solution on pollution and traffic in cities
is healthy public transportation system.

Of course, one can argue against the need to move “bio-mass” when thoughts can move at almost no cost across the globe.

Alternatively,
a network of self-contained communities
may reduce the need for transportation and all the associated complexities.

The human world we know it today,
is structured
around the pattern of consumption and ownership.

The more we consume, the better it is.
The more we own the happier we allow ourselves to be.

Money comes in here
both as a measure and a store of “Value”.
It is designed to be a “yard stick”
and it in itself
becomes our most valued possession.

So what is “Value”?
Do we Value the same things as our forefathers did?
Do we Value the same things through out our lives?

What are the “Exchanges” we partake in
to survive as biological beings?
No one wants to die
– for we have this abiding belief
that this body is really all that matters.

If you see the physical comforts we crave,
the whole world seems to be screaming
for a “pain-free” life
of “splendid style”
– some foolish notion of perfection
– achievable through acquisition of things we own!

The way the society is structured,
so the logic goes,
each one of must contribute
and must comply – more or less.

Everywhere around us
the “manifested” attention
seems to be on stuff money can buy
– better home, clothes, food, toys –
standard-of-living – standard of consumption,
including increasingly expensive education!

Is society to serve Man
or man to feed the Social Machine?

What does it mean to possess money?
Is it a possibility of exchange?
Is it a sense of misplaced richness / greatness?

Money has become the de-facto measure of man.
It is the only commonly accepted denomination
of everything social!

Social identity today,
for most of us,
is driven by money we have,
we are making or can make!

A bit like saying
how much oxygen can I own?
Do I own any at all?
Who is the I who owns anything?
What do I consume?

Technology centric living demands money.
What is the measure of value in nature?

What will we see
if we look at the life of a cell
within this gross body, I call me?
Is that “life” merely “incidental”?
What does it mean to be “multi-cellular”?

Where is the “whole” embedded?
So are “we” parts / members
of a nested sets of larger wholes? Wholons?

The way we live today,
are we becoming like cancer cells,
ignoring the health of the whole,
by feeding and replicating
the all-consuming, greedy, selves?

What is death and what is life?

Money is big for “social” animal.
Today it appears to ensure biological survival
besides emotional!