Lux lucre

It can be easy to forget the otherness of money; when we have enough, it's an expression of ourselves, as beautiful as we are; when we don't, it's a iron door that reflects our dismayed faces, mocking the impotence and in-consequentiality we see on them. This comes to mind as I process the news a friend told me today of a rent hike that is going to throw a precarious but balanced set of arrangements into chaos.

Money is something we personify: if you love it, it will love you, and we objectify: inflation/deflation is happening and to be avoided,/promoted. It represents an indefinite potentiality in terms of fulfillment of desire, but at any moment has only the value given it by common consent. As a medium of transaction, it flows like water; as a record of debt, it is as obdurate as stone. It is the soil in which enterprises root and the rain by which enterprises are nourished. Its smell is everywhere. In its absence, it is most present. It is the breath of the world. It is nobody's and everybody's.

For me, money is something forever dwindling; for others, it is forever proliferating. One reason, perhaps, why I don't like to review my accounts is the a priori assumption that the news will be bad; there will be less than wanted, less than expected, less than needed. Money treats me with disdain, and I'm sometimes happy to only look and not spend so as to spite its agitation to be in circulation.

This is all silly talk; money comes from hard work and prudent investment (and other pious behaviors), of course. But there's also birth, crime, monopoly, sheer luck. Money mocks those who recommend only one way to woo her. And there must be at least fifty ways for money to leave her lovers. But if she (why she?) appears again unexpectedly one sunny day and wants to dance, who will not drop everything and step out with lightsome foot.

It's tempting to anthropomorphize, but there's nothing theoretical about my friend's predicament. The desire for profit on one hand and inadequate income on the other are threatening to wreak havoc. This irresponsible goddess should get out of those glamorous gowns and tiaras and into overalls and bandanna and get to work helping my friend.

But, like a cat, money doesn't care, cannot care. It's me who must. With or without money, it's somehow up to me to practice generosity, constancy of caring and courage as my encounter with my friend evolves.