"Money represents lack. Money represents things in the past (debt) and things in the future (credit), but money never represents what is present."
Which after reading the article, I could relate. We spend so much of our time worrying about having enough. About making sure we can provide for ourselves, to have the latest fashions, to own the hottest purses, to make sure we get to visit the best places and travel the world. What we don't think of when we are milling the clearance racks and worrying about our increasing debt is, why do have it? How did we develop as people over time to become so money hungry and be so dependent on the simple things that people didn't have centuries ago.
Suelo spent his time going to college, working in the peace corp and volunteering at a women's shelter, he even lived in India for a period of time without money. But through his experience, he noticed the way people work. He worked in an impoverished Ecuadoran village and over the decade he viewed how money changed them. He quotes:
" The tribe had been getting richer for a decade, and during the two years he was there he watched as the villagers began to adopt the economics of modernity. They sold the food from their fields—quinoa, potatoes, corn, lentils—for cash, which they used to purchase things they didn't need, as Suelo describes it. They bought soda and white flour and refined sugar and noodles and big bags of MSG to flavor the starchy meals. They bought TVs. The more they spent, says Suelo, the more their health declined. He could measure the deterioration on his charts. "It looked," he says, "like money was impoverishing them."
Is that how America came to be with their obesity issue?
America was a nation of nothing in the beginning. A nation built by people who suffered, who had nothing and were punished for their beliefs. They traveled across an ocean to find a new start. Fought their mother country to be free.
America was a free standing nation of Native Americas who had their own process of working within their own tribes, working together to make the best of their lives. They lived happily, and healthily, before settlers arrived on the soils of America. With the Europeans came disease, war, modern living. Technology and currency. What may end up being the death of this nation.
We celebrate Thanksgiving in the grandest of ways. We buy the most expensive turkey, spend all this money and time cooking these grande meals with their many courses, desserts and decorations and dressing up for the occasion. What we don't remember when we give thanks, is how is started and what the real meaning was behind it. Many give thanks for their families, for the prosperity, health and life. What nobody remembers is what brought thanksgiving to the table. A group of settlers who couldn't grow crops, who were slowly dying the cold they didn't see coming and a group of Natives who had spent centuries living in the weather, and saw a suffering group of people. They could ask of no compensation when they offered their food. They could ask of nothing in return but the content faces of the people who were fed and who would survive the harsh winter. In a time where money could not exist and people were in debt to each other only by what they could offer. Was a simpler time we have forgotten. The forging of a nation on nothing, developed a nation who suffers from a recession.
We frown upon those who suffer now, we protect our meager earnings like they are the survival of our puny race. But we forget, the ways our ancestors lived before us and the reason we exist at this time. Suelo is someone who is making a difference by doing nothing. He stated something that will stick to me for the rest of my life:
He wanted to help people, but getting paid for it seemed dishonest—how real was help that demanded recompense?
It is true in so many ways. When we give ourselves, how much are we asking in return. Even in the idea of paying it forward, in the back of our minds are hoping that when we give, it will come back to us at some point. That is equal to the idea of Karma, what goes around comes around. When many would chalk that up to being negative, in the positive, we still see it that way. When we give, we shall receive. But that is not what Christ died for. That is not what is apart of the Sermon on the Mount.
We are meant to live the hardships of life without the debt and without the need for credit.
Its the money to develop refined sugars and MSG that is killing us as a nation. Its the constant need for medical care that is to blame. But if we take it all away, how would we be?
Without the money to refine sugar and MSG, we would not be eating the unhealthy, prepackaged foods. We would be eating fresh home made cooking. Food from which we could grow in our own backyards. Then we would not get heart disease and other ailments that come from an unhealthy diet. In which we would not need to spend millions a year on health care. In which we would save money on things. Without television and the need for electronics, cars, and other luxuries, we would not need to work for we grow our own food, and use natural resources to live, so we would not need all the money to pay for anything. So we would not to work far from home and we would not need the fancy car that we are working to pay off.
Its things like this that come full circle in the our need and obsession with money. After I read this blog, it came to me that I myself am selfish in my need for unnatural resources. I love to watch tv, I have a subscription to netflix, itunes, rhapsody, satellite radio, on star and other unnecessary things.
Suelo updated his blog at a public library. So he truely lives without much. And he has survived for many years in this way. When we give to others, we expect something in return, but if we all worked together. Would things be different?
I attend church on Sunday, in a place that I find peace. Apart of a church that believes in the original method of a prophet and 12 apostles. The original church that Christ set up. We also believe in humanitarian work and a congregation that works together to help each other out. However, we are still dependent on the money that we make, the tithing that we pay and the money required to help people out.
While reading this I wondered. If everyone in my ward at church grew their own food and livestock, and lived without the computers, cars and electronics. They stayed in the area and didn't travel and worked with each other, would we all survive without money? We didn't travel, and didn't use pesticides for our crops and fed livestock off the land. We drank the raw milk from the cow and ate what we grew. However, we hone the talents and knowledge the Lord has bestowed on us to make our community work. Those who are talented in medicine, healed the sick without the cost of a doctors appointment. Those who could sew bandages did it for free and passed it along to the doctors for the ill. Those good with medicine made it from the crops in their field and from the gifts of others. Women who sewed and made clothing received the cotton from the growers for free who received help in their fields for free. If we all honed our individual gifts and passed them along without the expectation of something in return and everyone gave equally to their ability and worked to make the community thrive and not their individual self. We would work out to be a great community. Of people who lived without money, without suffering, worry and debt. A community that bound together to make each person important and left nobody suffering in the shadows. Would the stress the causes strokes be gone? Would the death rate go down because we were healthier?
In my final conclusion, I say yes. A nation without money and without debt would be a happier nation. If we all honed our own skills and lived without the means of what the lord gave us and passed it along generously, we would all be better off in this world. In a way, I concluded that money does equal death, its the sickness we never saw coming and the illness we never knew was boiling in our veins from our conception. Maybe in the near future we will all see the mistakes we were taught and the problems that money cause and try to live without it. I, myself will rethink the decision I have made and the ways I delve into the world of money. Maybe I could live without it. For this, I am going to try.
