theblackdostoyevsky

The genie grants you a wish. What is it?

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I’m unemployed. I’m supposed to say money. I want to say money. Pallets of it. Well, digital buckets of it? A trillion zeroes of it? 

What even is money, now? 

For most of us, it’s a series of digits hidden behind app login screens and authentication passkeys, preceded by some strangely non-alphabetic, occult symbolism. 

Still, I can’t think of anything more than money, and that pains me, because I know that money is not. It makes wings like eagles and flies away. Alone, without goods to exchange it for, it’s worthless. Without agreement on its value, it can’t be bartered for anything. It can’t be eaten, can’t be drank, can’t be worn, can’t be lived in. Whittled down to its base function, money is only as valuable as the desire for what I’m willing to give up money for. Money is safety, the security of being able to have what you want or need when you want or need it.  

How badly do you want that Starbucks? Enough to pay $10? What if it were $20? What if it were your last $10? What if you knew another $10 would materialize in your wallet the second after you tapped your phone on the keypad?

How badly do you need that insulin? Enough to forgo paying your mortgage for it? 

This thought experiment could get out of hand pretty quickly, and the truth is, in reality it already has. We call it debt. We call it speculation. We call it this odd and ambiguous term that means something to everyone but the same thing to no one: Value. 

So, what do I really “value”? 

Money can’t be the answer, then, because I don’t value the money. I value having it available to acquire what I actually value when it presents itself. If I desire a home, I’d like to have the money available to purchase it. If I desire a case of unsalted sunflower seeds, I’d like to have the $26.99 available to buy a case. Make it a cool $29 for the expedited shipping. 

And then, can I even trust having money that I don’t control? The Bible says that riches don’t profit in the day of wrath. There are things money cannot buy and, usually, when you realize you can’t buy them, you also realize those things carry the most value. Love. Respect. Honor. Confidence. Talent. Beauty. Mercy. Forgiveness. Kindness. Patience. Basically, the fruits of the Holy Spirit found in Jesus Christ. 

Don’t mess around and be rich and piss off the wrong person. An IT login and a few backspaces and you can be broke again quite quickly. So, beyond money I’d need control. To have control means control over everyone else, which means I’d need to become a tyrant in order to protect my riches. People resent tyranny; they buck against it. I’d have to write, employ and enforce laws to keep them in line. I’d have to imprison the ones who refuse. That would cost me money. The cleverer malefactors, I’d have to kill. Quietly disposing of dead bodies costs, too. 

So, money won’t satisfy unless I can trade it for value, and because I value control, to protect the money for when I need it, the elements necessary for control eat up the treasury and siphon the very security that the money was supposed to provide. 

What do I wish for, then? To kill the whole world, so that I can save myself? Sound familiar? IYKYK. 

But what do I wish for? What do I value? 

I value my family’s safety.

I value having what I need when I need it. 

I value having what I want when I want it. 

I value control. 

But I can’t control any of these things, because I can’t control what you wish for. And isn’t that, ultimately, the problem we’ve all come to: the inability to control other people? 

Would I dare to assail your free will, using witchcraft to compel you to perform my will, whether through manipulation, intimidation, or domination? Am I that afraid of you and what you’ll do to disturb or extinguish what I value? Do I have a choice but to control you, in order to achieve the peace I so desperately seek? 

Ah, there it is. There it went. What I actually value:

Peace.