In three hours I will be rich.
In five hours I can only eat out once a month.
In thirteen hours I can buy myself an apartment paying full cash.
But right now, in this moment I could face foreclosure on my home.
During the next twenty-four hours nothing will have changed in my life. The only difference is the how long it takes for me to arrive in a new time zone or country.
Travel and globalization have shown the relativity of worth, value, and wealth. I know I speak from a perceived privileged position. Not all the world’s people can just hop on an airplane and zip off to destinations known or unknown. There are undeniably serious problems with poverty, dislocation, and starvation. What I am referring to here is more subjective. It is the perception behind what we desire, not the immutability and direness of critical sustainability.
I am a white, funky fringe American urbanite barely hanging onto my status as a middle-class creative arts professional. In my home country I have adapted myself to the considerable economic restrictions that come with my trade; cabs are taken only to get to the airport, and my car is sixteen years old. I survive on thrift store expeditions and lots of Craigslist forays. For the past few years I have been living inside artist villages that surround the outer rings of Beijing, China. Before that it was Latin America, and before that, Europe. I have outsourced my heath care to the most modernized, lowest cost places I could find (Argentina, Mexico, now looking at India), been able to take cabs everywhere (China), and only been able to afford to go out for coffee and barely even that (London). All of this is not new news for anyone who has traveled or sprung for a vacation.
What has not changed under any of these myriad circumstances is who I am and what I aspire to. My values, spirituality, and outlook remain the same—simple living, remaking and reusing most things, public transportation if available, vegetarianism, abstaining from luxury or brand name items at least on a first-pass basis (though I don’t mind the quality if it’s used). Yes, I have a laptop computer, but my TV is only thirteen inches wide and it is secondhand. I Dumpster dive when I have money and I Dumpster dive when I don’t. No difference. I have earned $100,000 a year and I have earned nothing.
What makes this wide discrepancy in my material circumstances is money, whether it is pesos, euros, renminbi, or dollars. It is various colored pieces of paper with intricate layered graphics issued and handled by hoards of international monetary traders who set my worth relative to where I stand on the planet at any given instant. The value of that paper, as everyone knows, can fluctuate tremendously. In China, I am perceived as a wealthy Westerner—no questions asked. That perception gains me entrée into the highest levels of society; I mean lunch with millionaires, powerbrokers, diplomats and even representatives to the National People’s Congress, levels that in my own country are not a daily staple of my life. It’s easy to say it is because I am a foreigner, but that’s not entirely true. It is also because of my perceived monetary value.
I am poor in Dubai and London, but I can be middle class or even rich depending on the location of my plane on the tarmac. What does this say about the value of money and self-worth? It’s not that money is not real, and its not that money doesn’t make a difference, but it does say that money is highly perceptual. The value of that perception, which many people base their worth upon, is skewed. I admit I get skewered by it as well, especially when there is not enough of it. For instance, to stretch the analogy, say you have purchased a new BMW car. As soon as you purchase it, it immediately loses a percentage of its value, even if you drive it a hundred miles for just one week. In real terms as the supposed newest model it’s probably still as valuable as it was the week before, but its worth has changed considerably because now there is a little dirt on the tires.
It’s certainly a more enviable position to be wealthy, or at least perceived as wealthy. The reasons are, besides material possessions, access, mobility, respect, and opportunity. Wanting these things allows one to develop potential, and enjoying the “better” things in life, although what is better does not share an across the board cultural consensus. Some people think bigger is better, and base their lives on that premise. It’s the pursuit of that premise that leads to the successful Ponzi schemes that frequently make it into the news. However, severe lack of money does restrict survival levels and growth—there can be no doubt about that.
Another way to look at this issue of worth is from a Buddhist perspective. Any phenomenon experienced is experienced only in the mind. The fact that things change is proof that they are transient and not as real as they appear. For instance, if pleasure truly existed it could never change into pain. You would experience nonstop pleasure. The truth is you cannot hold onto change. But where do experiences really originate? They emanate from your own mind.
Mind is powerful. For example if you imagine or dream that you are burning in a fire, you might break out in a real sweat, even though there is no actual fire anywhere. Buddhists say there is no object and no perceiver of the object and it is the mind that solidifies things. Still, believing in objective reality is very helpful when you look both ways while crossing a busy street so you don’t get hit by a car. But getting back to the analogy of the fire, as soon as you imagine the idea of flames you name it—fire. Names, in fact, are also imaginary. Think about all the languages in the world and the all the words for “fire.” What you are actually doing is connecting a sound or guttural utterance to a nonexistent image according to a set of strange, grammatical rules. That is an issue of perception. So is money.
Value arises from mutual consensus. In China, the cold green translucent stone jade is highly valued. The deeper green it is, the more expensive it gets. I personally think jade is an ugly polished stone. It holds no value for me, yet this view is at odds with an entire nation and five thousand years of its history. That is what I mean by perceived value. I am not talking about the next hot meal on the table, which is clearly necessary for survival.
What happens in times of economic meltdown is partially about perceived value; what got us into the 2008 mess in the first place was betting on the nonexistent value of imaginary future assets called CDMOs. That formerly illegal speculation was made legal again in the year 2000 by an act of Congress allowed trading concrete assets (homes) for imaginary scenarios based on vague future predictions. This is the mass hallucination that has produced crippling consequences. It sprung from perceived, imaginary value.
Now SUVs are out. Credit card debt is out. Spending beyond your means is out. Living on borrowed funds is out. Acquiring what you can’t afford is out. Recycling plastic bags is in and carrying fiber or woven shopping bags is in. Because of rapid globalization I can clearly see my relative worth radically shift in the blink of an eye. I see it when I land in a foreign country. I see it in my own neighborhood.
In three hours I will be rich. In five hours I can only eat out once a month. In thirteen hours I can buy myself an apartment paying full cash. But right now, in this moment I could face foreclosure on my home. Which one of these scenarios is real?