Money

Money: Mon-I,
It allows everyone to own their suffering,
All yours, you deal with it,
Don't want to follow, here do as you please,
I give to you, I take from u.

What's all this got to do with money?
Everything.
Money buys you time.
Time for what?
Time to rest, to spend with your near and dear ones, time to spend with a dying one, time to read good books, time to eat healthy food, time to see good movies, time to rediscover beauty, time to understand ur life, time to understand yourself, time to understand ur purpose, time to understand ur transformation, time to take charge of ur transformation, time to reflect on your transformation, time to reflect on transformation, time.
Time.
Time, i don't have enough time!
I need more time,
No I dont't want to work 9-9,
I want time,
Time,
Time.
Ti-me.
Tie-me,
Tie-me...eternally in time.

Even a society that fundamentally barter's has within it seeds of distrust, money and economy. For bartering signifies ownership. Ownership is defined through boundaries and boundaries may give rise to feelings of scarcity and jealousy. Imagine a few people who live collectively in a small band at the foot of a mountain and share things with each other. They have very little needs, needs like clothing, toys, separate shelters, plots to grow organic vegetables etc. But whatever their way of life, it conditions them. Conditions them to believe this level of existence is appropriate and a fall below this is somehow regression, bad, not acceptable. Invariably they develop a culture, a culture that conditions at the level of biochemistry. It may not be at the verbal or expressed level, but may simply exist at the level of muscle memory of doing things repetitively or neurochemistry of eating particular kinds of foods. If they are used to sitting on rock stools of a particular height, they are used to sitting on rock stools of a particular height and if one of the stool breaks, 99% of the time, they will remake just like the previous one. Nothing wrong, it is easy, peaceful, allows for continuum without effort of thinking, observation, speculation. After a crisis there won't be inner resources to sit and deeply reflect before committing to any action. The crisis causes a disturbance at all levels of life and the deepest instinct is of survival and regaining equilibrium. The last remembered equilibrium. Hence all primary action will be directed towards restoration of that - that was, when the very reason for the crisis may have been the attainment of that - which was or the cause maybe different and response needed entirely different.

So imagine this peaceful band, sharing and living. Then by randomness or grace of nature, there is a volcanic eruption. Tt is scary, fierce and sends everyone running helter, skelter. When they reband, they have lost whatever minimum creation they had. The small kingfisher feather that acted as a headpiece, the sharp pointed stone that was useful in cutting, the trees that gave them fruit and shelter. All is lost. They were the mountain people, but have now come down to the plains. In the plains are the plains people, who live differently. Yet share amongst themselves. When they encounter the troubled mountaineers they spontaneously offer to help. They share things willingly. The mountaineers are able to gain control on their bodies, fears, emotions, thoughts but soon the begin to long. They long to belong. They long for the old ways and their stone stools of a particular height. So instead of turning into plains people, some of them try to bring their mountain designs to the plains. Some go far and wide in search of the kingfisher. They find the kingfisher in the sacred grove of the plains people!

U know what happens next. People without distinction, that were on the way to become one, become two. Distrust develops. There is a war, many are hurt, marred or killed. The elders call a meeting. They talk for days on end, but are unable to find answers to the actions of the young blood. They decide to ask the spirits. They drink their medicine wines and go into a trance for a few days. But the spirits always talk what the people are ready to hear. No ab-solvation (absolute solution) can be found, so a re-solution (relative solution) has to be created. The plains people are deeply hurt and unable to share freely now. They feel the burden of supporting something that is different/separate from them. The mountain people have taken a part of their soul away. There is deep disturbance within the souls of the plains people.
How could they?
Why did they?
Why din't they ask?
They want this disturbance to subside.
They want to go back to their peaceful ways, without the memory of this event. But it is difficult, almost impossible. So they decide that since the mountain people took their peace away, took a piece of their peace, they want it back. But since peace cannot be given, something else must be given. So they begin to barter. They say the mountain people have lived in the plains long enough and learnt some of the ways, they must now exchange with each other. Not only have they become two, but soon the world will become 3,4,5,6...to infinity and beyond.

With exchange comes, deferred exchange and memory;
With memory comes forgetfulness and remembering;
With forgetfulness comes distrust;
With distrust comes war;
After war one needs peace;
For peace one needs laws;
Laws that will stand the test of time;
Laws that will not get swept in the sands of time;
So the sands must be kept from being swept away;
They must be burnt and hardened into clay;
Clay on which to make strange marks;
Marks to mark that the exchange is marked.

The hardening of the soul cannot be softened through hardening of sands instead. Why just look around us now - it continues, the soft skin of mother earth being hardened with scabs (tar/cement/concrete) of her own blood (oil). So that hardened souls may have access to exotic fruits and vegetables or may play in the lap of nature whenever they want.
Anyway, soon the marking of exchanges would be inadequate, because the distrust unaddressed and restlessness unleashed would continue to feed itself. As people would begin to create out of imagination, create out of memory, give meaning to their creations, they would build attachments. There would be more conflicts, more loss of natural resources, not just out of randomness (Grace of Mother Earth). Soon the elders would be faced with a new challenge - rock bottom levels of motivation, willingness, understanding, trust, value and stability amongst the people. Everyone is looking at everyone else and slightest movement causes the whole to start a dance of its own that no one wants to dance in. There are too many transactions happening. Clay tablets have run out, paper has been invented, but that too is running out. The elders can no longer control the people. Youngsters are waiting to displace the elders and gain control. No one listens anymore. No judgements can be given, no justice established.

Conflicts will happen, this must be accepted, reconcillation must be deferred, there must be an opportunity to make good the loss through future endeavour. Everyone must move forward, for the past cannot be solved nor resolved, no solution found, no resolution reached. Instead of marking transactions and acting as mediums of justice everytime someone comes to them with a conflict, let's create a medium that people will use amongst themselves to arrive at a feeling of justice.
I am tired of this bickering and arguments and I want to remain silent now and die in peace. I want to be Mon. Mon-I.
Lets create money. So instead of marking transactions, people can simply exchange these clay tablets with strange marks, that symbolizes that the transaction was complete and just. Wonderful, we will now need lesser clay tablets, since these same ones will circulate amongst the people. Hey but wait, these mediums exchange must intrinsically be of no survival value to anyone, else they will be consumed. We will have to keep creating them forever and it will lead to the same problem of distrust. That will be so banal.

So money is created - in a trillion forms, materials and patterns. Clay, leather, copper, iron, brass, bronze, gold and silver, square, round, oval, triangular, even with a hole in the centre, with different markings that mark that the marked has a value greater than the holder, diamonds, pearls, rubies and crystals, paper, plastic and electronic too.

All in all, transformation from internal disturbances to external ones. In the end everything gets devalued, including human life and finally life itself. But that is not the case with nature. Remember the tadpole and the caterpillar, their essential conditions and life triggered a process of transformation, that may have external markings and manifestation, but in the end, they follow their karma, dharma or reprogrammed instincts (if u please) to support nature in its process of creation.
The Butterfly pollinates the very plants it once devoured, the frog feeds on smaller creatures and gets eaten by larger creatures thereby supporting in the balance of life. Neither is afraid of death, follows a simple survival instinct, does not blame the loss of its natural habitat on burgeoning populations of any creature, even if two of a kind meet somewhere and the conditions are right, the cycle re-establishes itself, they participate wholly in that which is present before them, they may have life cycles and aging, but their lifestyle negates the need of complex societies and emotional or moral support in old age.

Nature takes care of aging, disease etc by ensuring when the creature ages or its body will no longer be able to perform its dharma fully, it fulfills it's final dharma of being eaten and nourishing the body of another creature who is also trying to fulfill it's dharma.