If you ask a fish how's the water, they'll say "what's water?"
If you ask a capitalist how's the money, they'll say "what's money?"
The Nature of Money
Have you ever had so much money you could've made it rain? Have you lost money and had it go down the drain? Pooled your money together with your friends to rent a beach house?
Did we forget how words work?
At the last We Are Change Colorado open mic, I talked about the words we use when we describe money. Inspired by Mark Passio, I've thought about it quite a bit. People find occultism unapplicalbe to modern life. I find this unforutate, as this can actually free us from the words that blind us.
How do we use words? To go more in depth here, let's go to Alfred Korzybski and the three premises in General Semantics:
- Words are not things
- The map is not the territory
- To say something is, it is not
Why do I bring General Semantics with the potential affect of losing half of the available audience? Well, it's important to recognize that words are used as REFERENCE, and I like to use the term gesture. So when someone gestures to an object, both are a part of the equation;however, we want the object to have its meaning past on. I think Bruce Lee had something to say about this.
I didn't mentioned this time during the talk, however, I like starting my talks as a conspiracy. The etymology of this being con (together) and spire (breath), spirare, in latin. When we feel INspired, we take in breathe. When we fruit goes bad, it's known as EXpired (out breath, or even last breath), the root goes on else where as well. So, in the beginning, I start every to breathe together...something not that scary as "plotting", and propbably good for the world; a conspiracy
So let's go over what I discussed in the video again, plus some things I've blanked on while on stage.
Money
Breaks down to "Monad" "Ey", the one eye, also known as the third eye. Passio describes true Money as Knowedge. I like to describe money (notice the lower case) as the "strings to the root of all evil". You can pull and control people, yet if recongized, it's easy to cut the ties and have actions that are aligned with who you are.
Currency
Currency has a root in the word current. Currents flow, such like rivers. On the side of rivers we have banks. When I first heard, this strange idiosyncrasy, notice how nature likes to create patterns for us to walk on.
Accounting Terms
Cash flow is the net amount of cash and cash-equivalents moving into and out of a business. Next, (I kinda got this wrong in the video) yet liquity is a measure of the ability of a debtor to pay their debts as and when they fall due. From my understanding, how quickly can you disolve assets into cash before the IRS freezes your assets. It is similar to solvency. Honestly, I don't have much experience in accounting, yet you can read about the difference between solvency and liquity here
Gratitude
When asset go up in value, we say it appreciation. When I appreciate my friends and family, they go up in value. When I have curosity in a lovely lady I have interest in them. If you want your relationships and belongins in your life to gain value, then increase your appreciation and interest in them. Let's continue hacking gestures to point to the right objects.
Time
We spend our time with each other and pay attentioned. Again, Passio describe Time as the true spritual currency. I don't like to hear when someone says "they don't have any free time", this tells me that they have must have sold it to someone else. I'd much rather hear who or where they spend it on.
Crypto-currency
I love how I get to talk about this while I'm on Steem (prounced steam of course). Dan Larimer actually named it after Self-Esteem; however, Nature has her way with us.
One of my favorite archetypes, Roger Ver was dubbed as "Bitcoin Jesus", the Profit...I mean Prophet of Bitcoin. Jesus has a reputation of preforming miracles. Walking on water and turning water into wine. Well, Ver can't do this in a physical sense; however, look beyond the gesture and it looks like he has. He turned money (water) in to wine (Bitcoin), and predicted the crypto-currency explosion early. This became so reputable in the community that comparing him to a spritual anarchist who can walk on water makes sense. So any time you want to feel like Jesus, I say you turn fiat currency into crypto-currency currency.
Materialism
For those who see the word as the thing, you can see them became very materialistic. They believe that money IS water. You can't LIVE without money! Humans are very sustaible to advertiments (advert- ment; change the mind...). There's a lot of branding, in reference to live-stock and burning the animals as their properly, and people actually start call the object the reference or branding. They have many poessions, so many they need self storage. I know Life Storage is one of the companies that provide these storage units. "What you own owns you", well of course, that's how we refer to them in the English langauge, posessions, like our spirt inhabits the object. Of course, we love when something goes on sail and we get to have our money take us further in the current.
Words we use are gestures to we mean. When it comes to untangible concepts such as money, we tend to ignore the words and only focus on the mental construct of the object, not the REFERENCE. This happens in many places; espeially politics. There's a place where we start using words that don't refer to anything, and that's when you know that conversation is useless, like politics. The geature and the object both play a role in communication, and we need to pay attention to this to make sure we don't mistake the to and end up w
TLDR; The most important take away I hope people can take is that we recognize what we WATER by using the Federal Resever notes. If we stop a flow, stop the current, then that what we don't want grow, dies. If we do want to see something in the world, take note of WATER (money) being used and what you water.
I appreciate your time and attention! Maybe some of these I've stretch out a bit, yet I find this a more of an artistic piece then a philosophical paper. Please address any mistakes, logical fallesies, and ask any questions. Take Care! :D It's All About Love!
Edit: Shout out to @wearechange-co @johnnyhurley and all of the other lovely people who came to the open mic!
▶️ DTube
▶️ IPFS
We're all swimming in words and metaphors we mostly don't understand or even see as metaphors. Our language reveals more than we realize, which you've illustrated well here.
The map is not the territory is one of my favorite all-time quotes, btw. Words can never fully express an experience in the way that actually experiencing it can.
I highly suggest taking a look into General Semantics, especially with your background. You can find more information here: http://www.gestalt.org/semantic.htm
Also, you may be interested in this book: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levels_of_Knowing_and_Existence
Awesome, thanks for the suggestions