I’ve always thought of my inability to relate the value of things to the things itself as an issue in myself due to not “earning my own money and spending it myself”. Fast-forward to now and I guess I kinda forgot about the whole thing and I do have kind of a gut feeling for relating them. Still, visiting this thought with the Kid Thoughts article I want to write down what I think of such values now with my current perspective.

Beginning with the conclusion: Putting a value to anything is disgusting. It is disgusting as it is putting a value on life. It is common sense that life doesn’t have a value right? There shouldn’t be any given amount of money to buy a person, there shouldn’t exist an amount of money to put an end to someone’s life. I don’t think anyone will discuss this. But we still do. Most of the world has a price for birth costs. Most of the world has a price for funerary procedures. Most of the world has costs of education. All of the world functions putting a price to people’s lifespan.

My past self was right in not seeing correlation because there isn’t one! Like I said in the previously mentioned article, what price would I put to that notebook? I’m not asking for an amount of money here, I am asking for the lifestyle of my parents, I’m asking for them to trade away things, I’m asking for a lot. It’s not about price, it’s about life.

To develop this idea further, I’ve never seen money as an exchange operation. I am no exchanging things, money is not a currency. Money is Right, it’s a permit. Work doesn’t pay me money to pay stuff. I work and give away hours of my life, a certain day money falls of the sky in a given amount,  the things I can and cannot do are limited by this amount. This is why I failed to put value on things, this is why I fail to value myself and my work and this is why “thinking about the money” doesn’t help at all to motivate me to work.

“I want to earn more money”, “I’m being paid too little”, “I am paid enough”. Statements that I will never understand. “I have needs that are not being met and are basic”, “There’s things that I want to do but I’m not allowed to do them”, “I have my needs covered and I feel satisfied with my ability to do what i want”, now that I do understand. If you just say they don’t have money it sounds like a *they* problem, but if someone is denied eating three meals a day now that’s the problem of the person denying, and that’s actually what’s happening. If someone asks me how much I want to earn I have to query in my mind the list of expenses I have for existing, summing my desires, which is easy for an adult because that impending number is close to them, but that’s actually a question without answer. I don’t know how much money I’m worth, it’s not that, the question is faulty, it’s what do I need and what do I want, physically

Another extension of this is valuing works of people. There’s a CD of an artist I like… can’t I just have it? “What are you talking about, don’t you wanna support the artist?” Uh… are they alright, are they in need? What can I do for them? Is someone refusing to give them what they want or need? Why are you asking me to give permission to the artist to exist? Why should I give them permission? Of course they have a right to have their needs and desires met! Am I the weird one for thinking like this?

It has been a source of conflict for me for multiple times:

Exhibit A: A friend of mine doesn’t have a computer, so I give them one I don’t use. “How much did they pay you?” Ah, no, they just needed one and I didn’t need it. “Okay but there was a material exchange of things of value” It is of value now, value has been given to it by giving it to them, for me it had no value, because there wasn’t a need.

Exhibit B: Can you give me that, I need it “Okay, that’s going to be X buck” Hm? Are you using it, don’t mind, i thought you didnt need it “Oh and I don’t, haven’t used it in years”, Oh so will you give it to me? “Yeah for X bucks” Didn’t you just say that you no longer need it?

Exhibit C: Here, bought this for you because you said you needed it. “What, why? I can’t accept, you don’t have that much money right?” I have my necessities met at the moment so I’m actually alright, if you didn’t buy it it’s because you didn’t have enough right? “I do have, I just wanna save, shouldn’t you be saving too?” Why? My necessities have been met

And on the topics of savings (accumulating permission to not be denied of something of need later in the future like the need for medical assistance for something not covered by the public healthcare system, buying a car or the like), isn’t private savings very inefficient? If you are being denied something, I will help you get it, and I would expect the same thing. But that’s not how that works for some reason. We are supposed to rely on ourselves, even though there’s a lot of variance in the acquisitive power! (deniability threshold). Wouldn’t it be better if we help each other when we are being denied of our desires and needs? If it turns out there’s not enough, then literally there’s no way that everyone could have enough saving up individually and even worse that *must* mean there would be a lot of people in an even worse situation

I remember very clearly the visceral feeling of hating and not understanding money when I was in primary school. I remember reading on the history of money by myself and writing about how a society would function without money. And what I wanted wasn’t for society to go back to trading, that’s for sure. Of course I quit that idea because how the fuck would a kid that hasn’t worked a day in their life know how it could work. And if it was a good idea, then money wouldn’t exist anyway, because we know our society is at the peak of history, we live in peace after all of those past, barbaric societies

Of course I didn’t know shit about capitalism or communism or anarchism or anything like that. I just remember a burning sensation in my heart that was completely unable to understand why we had to compete for resources and stand out… like, stand out? everyone? doesn’t that mean no one stands out? and what if I don’t want to stand out or am not able? do I just get it worse than the others for no reason? Literally the sole existence of the concept of “standing out” revolted my soul. Its sole existence made me want to *not* stand out, why would I try to study and get good grades to get a good job if that means that others just don’t? What sparked this rivalry with money was my inability to measure value. I needed a notebook for school, my parents weren’t well off so I had to share the same one for multiple subjects and with really bad quality paper that felt awful, compared to the quality of the notebook of my classmates which was a dream to write on. But I didn’t blame my parents for not buying me the thing, I wasn’t even envious of my classmates, I just wondered “these don’t exist because people want them, but because they cannot afford others”. In what world does that make sense? Why wouldn’t kids be able to have notebooks and why would them have notebooks of different quality based on which family they were born with? It didn’t add up.

Now I have been exposed to a lot more and I know these feelings are literally bare a bare minimum of empathy and that there’s an uncountable number of people that have died, are dying and will die defending these ideals. Now I know all these ideas have a name and history attached to them, whole currents of thought and studies but also controversies, cultures, myths, stereotypes and common imagery. The problem now is that I know now that I don’t live in no culmination, no adult got anything figured out and all we’ve got is scars of people trying, an ugly mess of scars.

I think the kid I was was right. They were right to doubt the world and to think something better was possible. They were also right to think the solution would be simpler and prettier to be right. Such society shouldn’t need these scars, and it is my belief that the kid shouldn’t need to know to be right either