The Bigger Picture / Shalini Sinha: Money doesn't mean anything. It's nothing in itself. It's only a currency, a means of exchange, and a way of recording and passing on worth. But it has no real value.
Unless we exchange it, it doesn't provide us with anything. It is unimportant, a transfer point, a middleman and, in many ways, a digression.
The value lies in what we trade money for: material things, sometimes necessary, sometimes not. We trade it for essentials, like shelter, food and warmth; and non-essentials like specific entertainment, personal "must haves" and multiple cars.
Ultimately, we are trading for access to technology - things we don't have and can't make ourselves. Although we have come to take for granted the presence of money in our lives, we only have it because society has expanded so far in its structures and hierarchy that each person no longer has access to the things they need. And so, we trade what we can. Much more than a gain, money represents a loss - a loss of technology - and this has given it a hold over our lives.
"Technology" represents a much broader concept than what we use it for today. It is more than just computers and 3G phones. It is the knowledge to build things, as much as the product itself. A house is the result of technology. Knowing how to build one means having technology in real terms.
As a relatively defenceless species, we have survived to grow in numbers and have an impact in virtually every environment in the world because of two things: our opposable thumb which allows us to hold and manipulate things precisely, and our brains which allow us to think, learn and communicate. These two things give us the means to make and use tools - develop technology. This is the key to our existence.
However, not everything we can conceive to make is useful. It depends on one's goals and values. In ourselves, we see an ability to produce technology that is significant, and technology that is irrelevant. Likewise, we have created technologies that are highly destructive - to individuals personally (chocolate bars) and societies on mass (the atomic bomb). In a unique twist of fate, it is no longer the common needs of the individual that are driving the production of technology, but the irrational interests of a few that are dictating what technologies are being developed.
Currently, most of the world's resources go into developing technologies for destruction. While we have gained from this several useful household items, what a different world it would be if we put that resource into building things where love and justice were our primary goals.
Nevertheless, our need for money hasn't come entirely from the misdevelopment of technology (although this distress might explain our behaviour around money), but from the narrowing of knowledge and the limiting of access.
Technology is no longer in the hands of individuals. We are now able to develop quite complicated technologies, but only a few retain the knowledge behind them. We also have businesses developing to do things for us (cooking, sewing, crafting, gardening). We have conspiracies operating to ensure that technology cannot be accessed by the masses - cloth is made to be too expensive, cars are made that cannot be serviced - in order to create a "market need" for services. Finally, we have global market forces strategising to limit access to technologies all over the world, forcing imports and exports and the control of prices.
And so, we must trade. We must ask someone else to build us a house because we can't do it, and they can demand from us half a million euro in exchange.
While once every human in a group had equal access to the required technologies, we now have money, distress priorities and dependence.
We are in a habit of trading for technology. So much so that we've lost perspective. We forget to assess whether the technology is something we need or even something we've truly lost. We find ourselves trading now for some material things that are wholly unnecessary, but represent to us something else - "feeling special", "belonging". And we trade for things we haven't lost - the knowledge of how to love someone. Sometimes, we trade for things that don't deliver the technology we are looking for: how to build self-esteem, courage, integrity and happiness. These things don't come from a diamond, a bottle of wine or a pampering hamper. They come from taking risks to love and be loved, and so from making an effort.
We are now facing into the month known in our culture for the greatest level of consumerism. Yet, at the heart of it is a hope to engage in generosity and love. Trading large amounts of money to give away complex technologies will not always achieve this. Rather, the ability to extend kindness and let our loved ones realise the value of them in our lives is shown through our hearts. Sometimes the simplest of gifts resonate with the most meaning.
ssinha@irish-times.ie
Shalini Sinha works as a life coach and practises the Bowen Technique. She presents the programme Mono and is part of the Health Squad on RTÉ.