And What Exactly ARE We Doing?

So I excitedly bought a new cell phone..one of those "smart phones". I bought it mostly because I

succumbed to the western culture enough to think I should accept credit cards for my business. I purchased the Inuit card slider immediately with the phone. I finally signed up for an account a few weeks into having my new phone.

Wasn't I surprised when I was denied an account to accept credit cards because *I* didn't have any credit. I was flabbergasted to be told that because I paid for everything in cash, check, or direct with my debit card for the last fifteen years at least, that I was not eligible to accept credit cards from Inuit. Really?!

It really sent a fire rod up through me. I pay immediately for everything I want from a hot tub to a bar of

chocolate. Three rescue dogs, a brand new 2001 Toyota Camry, airline tickets to see family in Italy, etc., all bought from direct cash.  I was completely responsible for myself and towards the people of the world who don't need to pay for any write-offs that may be incurred from me for not paying my bills or for my purchases. I am the kind of person that gets penalized? I was advised to go get a credit card, buy stuff, then pay it off. This made no sense to me.

So, I prefer to walk into Marshalls and buy two lamps right there with cash, but I shouldn't. Instead I need to use a piece of plastic to delay me paying for these things. Let's see, I

use the plastic card, take my lamps, wait maybe twenty five days for paper, stamps, and a whole lotta big carbon footprint to come to my house and tell me I have to pay for the lamps that I wanted to pay for the moment I bought them. HHmmm...
So I need to stop what I am doing, read this bill, then find a check book, write a check, put it in an envelope, stamp it and double the carbon footprint to get the bill paid just to prove to someone somewhere that I am someone?

Now, I know that technology has cut back on all my griping and my credit card bill for those lamps that I could have easily (and wanted to) pay for immediately with cash can be an "e-bill" and I can authorize full payment from my bank account online to pay for the lamps when I get billed for them.

I mean, how many people and resources really need to be involved in my buying two lamps? I like to engage in the Buddhist meditation of being grateful for all the humans and energy that brought something to me, like beautiful green beans on my dinner plate. Now I have to thank an additional amount of people and

machinery for billing me twenty five days after I bought something, and then thank them for telling me that I owe them money for the lamps? Furthermore I must meditate gratitude for the people who do the e-billing, and then thank the people who have access to all my personal and business finances who will take money from one of my accounts and send it to the people who collect the money, all while hackers are trying to get into the credit card accounts at the stores and access my bank information. (and they are some smart people!!).

Does anyone else see a problem with this lack of efficiency, as well as a myriad of other issues?

What exactly ARE we doing? I wonder.

What is money? Credit? Banking? Exchange? 401k stuff? Pensions, retirement, social security, paper and coins? What really are we doing to ourselves and each other with this whole concept of money. What has our system designated money to be and what is the purpose it serves?


The "lack" of money keeps people from getting the medical care they need. The "lack" of money keeps cultures in an oppressed state of living. Kids bully other kids if they aren't wearing or owning the cool
stuff...that costs money. And likewise people are judged negatively for having money. Money separates us into layers of value and worth. Humanity doles out the joys and bliss based on the ability to have or get money. People kill for money. Wow. What have we created?

And beyond that...is money really necessary? What is the base of Truth here? Aren't many of us struggling, fighting, celebrating, suffering, rejoicing in our lives in fairly direct proportion to how much money we have, need, want, desperately must have?

For what? Aren't there resources enough for all people to be fed on this planet? Don't we have the basic plants and skills to get viable food to people across the globe so all people can eat? Especially children and babies? But yet we, as a collective humanity, trap and sabotage ourselves with money. How much stress comes to all of us due to money matters? We falsely believe that without money we would have nothing. Um, money is paper or plastic or coinage and I am pretty sure that money itself actually doesn't stand on the assembly line at Ford Motor Company, nor does money plant seeds and harvest them. Humans do these things. The intelligence, skill sets, and commitment of human beings actually make these things happen.

When I vented about now having to get a credit card to prove something, to get good "credit" when I already was a model consumer, the person I was talking to just laughed, "Well of course it is ridiculous" he answered when I asked if he understood how asinine the whole things is, "But I accepted that this is how it is a long time ago." We train our children and youth to be consumers. We push them to buy and then stress, and then buy and then stress some more to catch up with paying for what they bought... on credit.

Well, I have never been able to keep quiet and chat it up happily with the others, denying that the Emperor was naked. There is no amount of peer pressure or human ego droning that would get me to agree.

  The guy is naked folks, and money is an agreed upon system that continues to hurt, damage, and cause such great suffering to our brothers and sisters of the world. I say it is high time that we take back our humanity and without fear or apology, we use the brilliant intelligence that is ours to create a world in which we ALL can realize food, healthy living, support for our challenges, education, clothing, safe living and sleeping. We accept a collaboration of synchronicity and thriving together as a human species!

I don't know exactly what we HAVE been doing, however I do know that we can make some wonderful changes. With those changes we can consciously know what we are doing and we will do it equitably and lovingly together!