Money Makes the World Go 'Round

I have a love/hate relationship with money.

I love it in that it gets me the things I need to survive, and even a few comforts. I love it when I have managed my money wisely, and I love to think that my savings will always be there when I need to continue surviving and being comfortable.

I hate it because people have been killed, tortured, and deceived so that others may obtain more of it. I hate it because it has become a currency of greed.

And I hate it because due to the greed of some bankers, politicians, and businessmen, my investments and savings may disappear.

If the dollar collapses, what will you do? What will I do? In addition to a love/hate relationship, do we also have a live/die relationship with money? Are we too removed from a life of growing our own food, making our own clothes, and surviving off of the land that we could not survive without money? This question terrifies me, because I don't know how well I would fare if the dollar collapsed.

In my outdoor survival class, we were encouraged to think about "what if" scenarios. Some were more realistic ("What if you got stranded in a snow storm while cross-country skiing?"). Others were rather cataclysmic (i.e. "What if a nuclear bomb went off and created a nuclear winter? What would you do to increase your chances of survival?"). But I guess "realistic" depends on your point of view. And point of view often depends on your sources. And if your sources are Fox News, well...I guess that's another blog.

The moral of this blog, if there is one, is more of a reminder for you and me: Don't put all your eggs in one basket. Be prepared for alternate ways of life. Because things aren't always as they seem...

Have you had your check-up?

We live in the age of information. Information at our fingertips: don't know the answer? Quick, pull out the cell phone and google it! And yet, there seems to be an inverse relationship between the amount of information available and the availability of the truth. Okay, perhaps not exactly inverse, but finding the truth seems to be like, pardon the cliche, a needle in a haystack. Is this purposeful? Many people have heard of conspiracy theories and scoffed. Many people have engaged in conversations with people whose beliefs differ from their own and scoffed. I have been one of these people at times in my life. However, scoffing at other people's opinion implies that you have nothing to learn from them, and by listening to them, you may learn that some of your beliefs are faulty. The more I learn, the more I realize: our beliefs need check-ups just as our bodies do. So, have you had your check-up lately? Have you questioned the things you believe to be true, or do you read the newspaper or watch the news and accept that you know the state of the world as told to you by an "unbiased" party? What are the biases and the affiliations of the people who supposedly tell us "the truth?" I don't believe that our society can advance unless we start to ask these questions. Question everything. Dismiss nothing. Gather the evidence, weigh it, and form your own opinion, but be willing to change your opinion if more evidence proves it to be flawed. Examine every paradigm, every point of view that you encounter. This is what learning is all about, and it is becoming too infrequent. Over the course of this blog, I hope to examine my own beliefs and provide some perspectives that anyone who reads it may feel free to examine as well. As a disclaimer: I don't claim to know all the answers or even any of the answers and if I "put on airs" please feel free to let me know. I am simply inquisitive, and searching for the truth; a quest that I'm sure most humans share.