01 Jul Money is not Immunity
How money is not immunity: When you look at immunity closer, you begin to see what it offers that money doesn’t offer.Image created by DO11.10.
Money is Not Immunity
One reason I write these posts is so you get to know RAISING CLARITY and whether you’d like to work with us. (As we say, RAISING CLARITY is an acquired taste, and we hope you may acquire it!)
Today’s post is about the idea that money will keep us from having to experience (add your favorites in a “Comment” to this post):
- the hard parts of being alive
- other people
- other people’s pain
- our own pain
- illness, disease, and aging
- climate change (I’ve heard this in my climate community work, in case you think I’m making it up)
- in other words
Just saying: RAISING CLARITY will never help you try to “immunize” using money. Using clarity, yes.
You might not have noticed you thought that money = immunity. I still do occasionally, until I catch myself and sit with my own mind.
Many right-minded people in wealthy countries think money = immunity. How can I tell? Look around at how we use money! How can we not tell? It’s one reason we are surprised that lice and domestic violence and I don’t know–parking tickets–also happen to rich people. We think there is actually a point beyond which “enough money” (which if you notice is another wiggly area for most of us: when is it enough?) keeps “them” from having to be unhappy.
Money can be addictive, as we wrote in one of our most tendentiously titled but actually quite sensible posts: money just exaggerates existing tendencies. That’s why we’re on you (and ourselves) to change tendencies.
Notice this also means there is nothing about having money (even “enough” money!) that makes us unwise. Again, money’s just not like that. It just exaggerates existing tendencies. Here is a quote from Rumi:
God afflicts many with the trial of wealth and power,
but their souls run away from it.
A dervish once saw a prince riding on a horse,
his face illuminated like a prophet or a saint.
‘Praise to the One,’ he said, ‘who can
test his servants even using affluence!
Be careful what you wish for!
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