- …..and so he sold a piece of property that he dearly loved for an extremely handsome profit and was feeling really good about himself and full of himself for a short while afterward until he started thinking about what he was going to do with the windfall he had received in exchange for that property. Yes, what indeed was he going to do with this new, handsome cache of money? Money in and of itself is worthless–ugly in nature and intrinsically no more valuable than the greasy paper it is printed upon–and its only real value thereby comes when it is exchanged for either material goods or pleasant, memorable experiences. Well, he had just gotten rid of one of the all-time favorite material goods he had ever “possessed”, so what was the point in rushing out to buy another object in a frantic attempt to replace it? And that’s assuming he could find something that he genuinely liked better, which quite frankly wasn’t likely in the short term. Pleasurable experiences? Yes, that idea sounded enticing, truly–parlaying a material object for time rapturously spent is almost always a winner in the “big picture” school of thought–but he had already gone on a host of enviable vacations in the past year and wasn’t particularly inebriated with the proper spirit to go on another so soon afterwards. Ergo, what exactly should this guy do with his newfound bonanza? Any ideas? Yes…..no?? About “ownership” then. No one genuinely owns anything secondary to our ephemeral stay on Earth. At most, lucky individuals live until they are approximately one hundred years old, and incredibly lucky hominid dinosaurs might live until they are one hundred and ten. The Earth itself—that’s right, our endearing home planet allegiantly revolving around the Sun—including its surface array of chemical components that cruise through recent terrestrial times in the vainglorious guise of personal “material possessions” for individuals of the Homo sapiens species, has been around for roughly four and half BILLION years. I asked Alexa, and she dutifully informed me that 100 divided by 4,500,000,000 is 2.2 to the minus 8th power, in other words a nearly infinitesimally microscopic figure. And earthlings then actually have the nerve and audacity to claim ownership over portions of the cosmic spaceship on which they transiently reside as passengers, if only for a celestial nanosecond? Yes, truly a mind-boggling, asinine thought, I know! In any case, the paladin at the beginning of this dissertation sold his valued property for a fistful of money, felt smug for a smattering of days over his cleverness and entrepreneurial acumen….but then what? What is the next logical step for him to take? If you don’t ultimately convert the money you hold in your pockets into shiny toys and brag-worthy possessions and extravagant vacations, what good is it? That’s right, no good. Let’s be completely honest here: Money merely gathering interest in a bank account or C.D is about as sexy and glamorous as a bad case of hemorrhoids, but unlike those hemorrhoids, you won’t be taking any of the money or financial instruments you own now or in the future to your gravesite, crematorium chamber, or whatever option you choose to initiate your conversion back to the stardust whence you came.…..
Skip to content
Fred's Soapbox 