persee

On a quiet evening in late June of 2023, the world ended. This was not the first time; I know it won't be the last. But, personally, it still felt like the end.

Capitalism and Needs

I hate hierarchy, but in the context of Capitalism, everything falls into one. My needs do, too. In search for context within which I can envelop myself, my needs were as follows - * Money – Because everything is governed by the perverse search for material to feed our basic needs * Love – Because money creates holes that materialism can't feed * Food – Because love has a way of leaving you hungry This is not to say that needs won't exist past Capitalism. In fact, to move past this philosophy, we need needs. Because nothing else motivates the human psyche like hunger and desire. But it's not that simple under the pre-established hierarchy. Since money is intricately linked with every need we have, we confuse our other needs with a need for cash. The next big salary, the next big client, the next big thing, becomes our governing motivation.

Money Usurps Everything

On a quiet evening in August 2021, I entered the workforce formally. The contract was signed, and I started working the next day. The premise was simple. > You had failed at everything else, so you now needed to write your way out. So, I started writing. And I did it well. I have always written well and made my way forward in the world. But it still missed a key point in my story. I was wrong in my assessment of the situation. I felt that money filled my need for stability. But, I wanted peace in love, in situations, and in different spaces. > So, money never did fill in the gaps, and I became incredibly infatuated with the concept of earning money instead of the need to have stability. This, then, is the central fallacy of life. Money chases us down in every aspect of life because, in terms of a hierarchy of needs, it falls on the top. Let's examine this with a few examples - 1. You need shelter, but to get shelter, you need money 2. You need food, but to get food, you need money 3. You need happiness, but you tie happiness to material possessions for which you need money This is not a condemnation of the need for material possessions. But, the summation of the fact that once you link everything you possess with money, you only crave that one thing.

When the World Ends

In 2023, I lost my job. It would come sooner or later and have sucked my life out. I was there, getting fat on a salary my paymaster's paymasters didn't think I deserved, so I was out. I would get money for the next two months and could continue being accessible. Good deal, right? I spent the evening when I got laid off searching for jobs. The core need was stability, a thing which I already had for two months, but I had already put money ahead of it because of the hierarchy. The theoretical instability that was two months away was scarier because money had already taken weed in my mind with a call for scarcity.

The Scarcity and the Abundance

Honestly, the mind never sees money as abundant. Now, you can see that as you like. But how long does the last raise in your salary take to become insignificant? This is not a function of your deserving to earn more. > Most people deserve to make more. This is a function of the fact that money is self-consuming. Your life quality will continually improve by very little with increasing money because every material possession that is 1.25x better costs 5x more. So, what seemed like a significant amount of money amounts to little when the paycheck comes through. The perceived abundance of cash is a bug, which always occurs from the outside in. Because every slight increase in life quality requires a blast of money, it looks like you're dying from the inside out.

This doesn't mean that there's no UNETHICAL amount of money

Billionaires are bastards from all sides

The point I am making is that of perception. By circling every benefit in life in increasing costs and building hierarchies that deem money the most essential, we have created a death pit we can't walk out of. Since money is always scarce, our life's missions must be connected. Forever growing, killing us.

No, the answer isn't forsaking everything

A knee-jerk reaction to learning about the scam around money is to ask yourself to give up all possessions. To adopt public property as the sole goal, to feel like desires must be cut short and tamed to build a story. This is not true. There are no positives in giving up desires. Desires are what make us hate Capitalism. In fact, we want to kill this philosophy because we desire for better. You see, capitalism has constructed its own enemy. Since the ultimate desire is Infinite money and capitalism can't give us that in its principle of scarcity, we build the opposing philosophies. If money could afford all we would ever want, we would never want Capitalism to end.

Building a new world

Next time you stand at a crossroads like mine, ask yourself, “Is money the thing I need most at this juncture?” Chances are you will answer yes. Chances are you will return to the grind and follow the same line as many have before. But, if you find other desires beneath money, those that aren't satisfied with a signature and a paystub, harness that desire. *If the need is food, learn to steal and grow. *If the need is shelter, squatting is an honorable act. *If the need is safety, a knife is often scarier than a 100 dialed on a phone. You might say these are not safe options for anyone. That's true. This isn't safe. Especially if you're queer and vulnerable from the start. But, the violence from society doesn't stop just because you're doing something legal. No one has stopped cops from killing trannies by being acceptable and smart. And finally, these are options. Illegality is mostly not fun, and there are consequences. So, if you get the chance to go there, do so cautiously. But remember, money is overrated, and the friends and community that'll feed you your next dinner are more valuable than a wad of cash and come with a lot fewer obligations.

Be safe, and remember that material possessions are so-called because they can be repossessed by a thousand stealing souls.