The illusion of money

What is the point?

Yesterday i came home, had a hot bath and then feel asleep. I was practically immobile when i was asked if i had any money on me. Only my lips moved and i am not sure who was moving them. Such is life as a teacher. I love being utterly exhausted. I don't understand how my mom did this though. She too was a teacher, she'd come home after a day of teaching and clean the entire house and then she'd make dinner. I can just about having dinner made. Cleaning the house...

The garden has settled nicely. All the plants i put in are thriving. It is raining today so i don't think i am going to get any gardening done. I will instead do all the laundry. This week i am getting everything out of the way. Work prep, emails, house things, etc so that the second week of the holidays will be home free.

So it will be busy, but a good busy.

I have watched the cuts steamroll over the landscape and it has been horrible. It has been horrible because we have created this system where people now depend a lot on this one thing, use this one thing to decide whether or not they will do something - money. It constantly frustrated me that when i was in an environmental NGO. Well, given the kind of organisation the RSPB is, i suppose - it does not do radical. It does cap in hand, and it does talk ever so nicely, it does science (look at all this proof) and it does closed door talking. It does sign this petition. It does media and publicity. It does not do embarrassment and it does not do touchy feely. In fact when it does to touchy feely it comes out kinda creepy. Anyway, the sum total of this kind of approach to changing things is that the people who are in power are kept in power. They then, based on your good behaviour, reward or take things away from you, if you are being bad. Of course the problem with the people in power was that they were not really in power. They answered to Westminster and the cuts are a result of the negotiations with the British government. So it is the RSPB fault? Is it the fault of the NIEA? No, it is not. It is the problem with this stupid monetary system which is all about the power. Money is used to control people and what they do. I have seen it over and over again do this.

Working in this system was like watching Class Three perform the Exodus. Plague of blood. Will you let my people free? No. Plague of frogs. Well? Yes, if you stop the frogs. Frogs be gone! Can we go now? I have changed my mind. No. Plague of lice...plague of flies... etc. You think how stupid must Pharaoh be? And he doesn't even stop after his son has been killed.

So... the forests are all now destroyed. Will you stop cutting down the trees? No. Our rivers are now filled with poison and we cannot drink the water? Will you stop putting chemicals into it? Er no. Oh a million people have died because of a nuclear power plant blowing up. OK, i will stop this if you stop bothering me about it. OK, well will you look into renewable energy now? No, i have changed my mind. People in power can be remarkably stupid when it comes to recognising their stupidity.

Turner's Plague of the First Born

And an education driven by standardised testing which is based on results and efficiency is about reinforcing this at a very young age. Do as you are told and you will be rewarded richly. Do not explore everything, learn to find what you love and then learn to find solutions to problems. Those who are best at following instructions are given the job to follow more instructions at a higher level. In Singapore if scholars question the system, they are told to leave. So many scholars leave and when they leave at great cost to themselves and their families they are humiliated for standing up for their own conscience.

So far from being wonderfully efficient, this system of bureaucracy and managementese has nothing to do with getting things done, even though it purports to be. It is about control, as Josef K discovered in The Trial. And MONEY is at the heart of this as the control, the levers by which we are forced to do things.

So, what are we to do you say, wringing your hands. We call their bluff. We say, sod your money. We short circuit the system and we say, we cannot be controlled. We will take our talent and ability and our intelligence and our love and warmth to a place which it can be used to its full extent. And then we will do as we see fit with other like minded individuals. The RSPB was not stared by a government grant. It was started by a bunch of ladies in corsets and sensible hats who stood with placards saying we are going to stand here until we get our way.

Shamans are shamans, protecting the rainforest not because they have been paid, but because they believe in what they do. Because it is their calling.

Is it working? Of course it is not working. But that is because not enough of us are voting with our feet. Once there is a critical mass, once enough of us say, enough is enough - we will be a force to be reckoned with. Until then the individuals who are doing this are marginalised, and hippies and nutjobs. We are dreamers and idealists and eccentrics. The truth is that we are eminently practical. We have looked at the system and said, it does not work, It depletes the planet, it reinforces slavery, it denies a person their identity. It causes extinction. It degrades the water, the forests, the air - things which we need if we are to live, Is it worth staying here for what? I often quote Camus' The Rebel when he says rebels are not extremists. They want to restore balance to the system which had gone out of control. Do i care if i succeed or fail? No i do not. What i care about is that i give of my best and while i can i will do so. And if i fail or succeed, that is not the point. The point is that i cannot take part in a system which is responsible for the continued destruction of Life.

The other option to rebellion is fundamentalism. To have one kind of extremism pitted against another kind of extremism. Which is happening now. The creation of ISIS is directly linked to the abuses which have taken place in the Middle East for almost 200 years now. When you have a complicit governing class which helps out with the exploitation, then you have what has emerged. All in the name of money. Which is the metaphor for power. And for what? We all need to stop playing the zero sum game.

I look at a place like Singapore and think, so you think it is the PAP which did this? No, it is the maid who had to leave her family and work for nothing, which has enabled the steel and glass. You think it is the scholars who have fashioned the public transport system? No, it is the Thai construction worker who with the sweat of his brow, living in horrendous conditions in a roach infested room which has done this. You think it is your bankers who have given you your buffets in hotels where you stuff your face until you cannot eat any longer. No, it is the farmer far away, who tills his land for next too nothing to export the veg, the meat, the delicacies. Everything is an illusion created by money. And the illusion conceals the blood and suffering which others have had to undergo in order for the few to enjoy and then, worst of all to WASTE. I don't look at Singapore and see a success story. I look at it and i see the end of the world.

The end of the world entombed in concrete and smothered in pointlessness. Devoid of all life beyond the economic reason to live. We all need so little to live. Love costs nothing.

So really i don't care who created this mess. What i do care is that currently we need four planet Earths to sustain us if everyone in the world lived like Singaporeans, not to mention the destroyed families and abandoned lives, and that cost is too high.

The really terrifying thing is that it is not so called leaders who are going to be able to see this. No. They are too busy recreating Singapores. Can China be like Singapore? Can Britain be like Singapore? Can Vietnam be like Singapore? Can Ghana be like Singapore? No, it can't because we do not have four planets. It is us the people who have to pay with their lives in order to give them what they want. And we have power too. We have the power to say No and then - to say Yes to a better, gentler, more relevant world.