If we woke up tomorrow
And all the trees were gone
We’d notice right away
If instead of trees
All the cars were gone
We’d notice right away too
Even something as small as forks
Would make a big impact
If they all disappeared at once
You’d go to eat and think
What the fork?
But if we woke up tomorrow
And all the money was gone
The world would still look the same
Same number of trees
Same number of cars
Same number of forks
Same amount of fresh food and clean water
Same amount of toxic dumps and nuclear waste
Same sunlight and rainfall and oxygen
And so on
Same everything
And in fact
Except for about 150,000 people
(The average number who die each day)
And the 360,000 new babies
(The average number who are born each day)
All of the people who were alive
Before the money vanished
Would wake up the next day
Still alive
So even though the money was gone
Really, apart from the actual coins and cash
What would be lost?
Some metal and paper objects
That have no practical, physical use
Money is a concept
We made it up
Then based our entire society on it
It dictates how we live
And what we spend our time doing
And whose lives matter and whose don’t
Except…it doesn’t actually exist
Money doesn’t live anywhere on the planet
Not like the people and the cars and the forks do
In other words
The most important thing in the world
Isn’t actually in the world
And yet we act as if
It’s more important than all the animals and the people
It’s more important than the planet we live on
It’s more important than all life even though it is not alive
It’s even more important than anyone you love
We made it up, this thing that is hard to get
That not everyone has
That doesn’t even exist
Except as an idea
I wonder why we all keep agreeing
That you can’t live without it
Meaning if you don’t have enough of it
(And don’t keep getting more of it)
We let you die
I mean, really!
That doesn’t seem right to me
We gave the money thing a good long try
But it's working very poorly
And worse all the time
I'm thinking
Since we seem to be going off script now anyway
What if we made up something else instead?
Some other way of being that doesn’t needlessly
Uselessly
Cruelly
Eat up life
And then
Tried that?
And all the trees were gone
We’d notice right away
If instead of trees
All the cars were gone
We’d notice right away too
Even something as small as forks
Would make a big impact
If they all disappeared at once
You’d go to eat and think
What the fork?
But if we woke up tomorrow
And all the money was gone
The world would still look the same
Same number of trees
Same number of cars
Same number of forks
Same amount of fresh food and clean water
Same amount of toxic dumps and nuclear waste
Same sunlight and rainfall and oxygen
And so on
Same everything
And in fact
Except for about 150,000 people
(The average number who die each day)
And the 360,000 new babies
(The average number who are born each day)
All of the people who were alive
Before the money vanished
Would wake up the next day
Still alive
So even though the money was gone
Really, apart from the actual coins and cash
What would be lost?
Some metal and paper objects
That have no practical, physical use
Money is a concept
We made it up
Then based our entire society on it
It dictates how we live
And what we spend our time doing
And whose lives matter and whose don’t
Except…it doesn’t actually exist
Money doesn’t live anywhere on the planet
Not like the people and the cars and the forks do
In other words
The most important thing in the world
Isn’t actually in the world
And yet we act as if
It’s more important than all the animals and the people
It’s more important than the planet we live on
It’s more important than all life even though it is not alive
It’s even more important than anyone you love
We made it up, this thing that is hard to get
That not everyone has
That doesn’t even exist
Except as an idea
I wonder why we all keep agreeing
That you can’t live without it
Meaning if you don’t have enough of it
(And don’t keep getting more of it)
We let you die
I mean, really!
That doesn’t seem right to me
We gave the money thing a good long try
But it's working very poorly
And worse all the time
I'm thinking
Since we seem to be going off script now anyway
What if we made up something else instead?
Some other way of being that doesn’t needlessly
Uselessly
Cruelly
Eat up life
And then
Tried that?
No comments:
Post a Comment