Money: What's It Really All About?

Do not be overawed when a man grows rich,when the splendor of his house increases;
for he will take nothing with him when he dies. --Psalm 49:16

Photo by Josh Appel on Unsplash

When I read this passage yesterday a number of thoughts crowded mind simultaneously. One thought was about how people tend to envy the rich, as if they have no troubles, and how much easier our lives would be if we were rich. Another idea was how easily people have been manipulated to hate the rich. 

It's character, not money, that counts. Wealthy people can be jerks or they can be very generous. The same applies to those who are poor or middle class. Ironically, rich people can also be envious of those who are richer, which is weirdly sad to me. How much is enough? I suppose for some folks the size of your bank account is the measure of all things, rather than how generous you have been.  

The third thought I had was to assemble a blog post made of quotes about money, which I've done here. As with most things in life, there are many different ways to look at a thing.

"Money makes the world go round."
--Joel Gray, Cabaret

* * * 

"Money is the source of the greatest vice, and that nation which is most rich, is most wicked."
--Frances Burney, 1768

* * *

"If money is all that a man makes, then he will be poor — poor in happiness, poor in all that makes life worth living."
--Herbert Casson

* * *

"To be clever enough to get all that money, one must be stupid enough to want it."
--G. K. Chesterton

* * *

"Where large sums of money are concerned, it is advisable to trust nobody"
--Agatha Christie

* * *

"They tell you time is money as if your life was worth its weight in gold.
All the money you make will never buy back your soul."
--Bob Dylan, When You Gonna Wake Up 

* * *

"Money often costs too much."
--Ralph Waldo Emerson

* * * 

"A feast is made for laughter
and wine makes life merry,
but money is the answer for everything."
--Ecclesiastes 10:19

* * *

"Money is only a tool in business. It is just a part of the machinery. You might as well borrow 100,000 lathes as $100,000 if the trouble is inside your business. More lathes will not cure it; neither will more money. Only heavier doses of brains and thought and wise courage can cure. A business that misuses what it has will continue to misuse what it can get."
--Henry Ford

EdNote: This applies equally to governments and individuals.

* * *

"The use of money is all the advantage there is in having money."
--Ben Franklin

* * * 

"Your lovin' gives me such a thrill
but your lovin' don't pay my bills.
Give me money, that's what I want."
--Gordy Berry / Bradford Janie

* * *

"Lost money is wept for with real tears."
--Juvenal, Roman poet 1st century A.D.

EdNote: I think here of Tommy Wilhelm in Saul Bellow's Seize the Day.

* * * 

"Money plays the largest part in determining the course of history."
--Karl Marx

* * *

"Follow the money."
--All the President's Men

* * *

"My father told me that when you're working, don't stop to count your money."
--Pele

* * *

Everyone has to make up their mind if money is money or money isn't money and sooner or later they always do decide that money is money.
--Gertrude Stein

* * *

If I'm So Smart Why Ain't I Rich?

Yesterday afternoon I again stopped to visit  the Great Lakes Academy of Fine Art here in Duluth, which is currently having its first annual Student/Instructor Art Exhibition, in which a totally impressive body of work is being displayed. At one point I was listening to a conversation that circled around the question of why some artist's work increases in value or declines in value. What gives a person's work significance? Why is this painting, which two years ago could be purchased for $5,000 now worth $150,000?

The discussion shifted to musicians, but could have encompassed engineers, mathematicians, novelists and other fields of endeavor. The highways of life are littered with people who pursued fame instead of their passions. The latter will find that their excellence at honing their gifts will likely enable them to provide for their families and grant them a deep satisfaction. If, however, they nurture a secret resentment because someone else got hold of a ticket to fame and fortune, they will become susceptible to a root of bitterness that infects their souls and steals the happiness and contentment that ought to have been their.

The Book of Ecclesiastes, one of the "Wisdom Books" of the Old Testament, has a verse that years ago became a favorite of mine. I once did a drawing of a runner to illustrate this passage, Ecclesiastes 9:11.

The race is not to the swift,
Nor the battle to the strong,
Nor bread to the wise,
Nor riches to men of understanding,
Nor favor to men of skill;
But time and chance happen to them all.

Line, shape, form, perspective and light.

There are so many images packed into this little gem of a verse, with a hundred applications. It's an axiom of American Dream literature, beginning with Horatio Alger stories, Dale Carnegie, Napoleon Hill's Think And Grow Rich and all the modern spin-offs of this ilk, that riches are guaranteed in America to anyone and everyone who simply works hard and believes in themselves. The downside here, if you buy into the possibility thinkers' rhetoric, is that if you are not rich then the problem is you. If you don't win the battle, win the job, catch the golden ring, then you are no good. Or that God is not with you. Maybe God is even against you. This verse clearly indicates that that kind of thinking is all crap. Winning or losing says nothing about your worth.

Some of the most influential people are ordinary people who through years of quiet personal sacrifice enriched others. They didn't have to do what they did, could have simply kept to themselves. Instead they turned outward, and almost unintentionally touched so many lives. I'm thinking very specifically of two people here, John Bushey and Dr. Robert Powless.

As Rumi said, "Let the beauty of what you love be what you do."

All this to say that when I visited the Great Lakes Academy of Art this weekend, I got the impression that Jeffrey Larson, the school's founder, was one of these kinds of people. As I spoke with the students who have been part of this new school, it became apparent that lives were being touched, shaped, inspired and becoming serious and intentional.

Meantime, life goes on all around you. Engage it generously.