Money

Money IS important.
There. I said it.

When I was about 8 or 9, I remember asking around to find out who the most powerful person in the world was. The guy who everyone would listen to. The guy nobody questions or answers back to. Somehow, I reached the conclusion that it must be the Pope. I mean, he looked old and distinguished enough. Surely his word must carry the most weight in the world.

I asked (Amma, mostly) if he could order people to stop using money. It seemed to me that most of our (the world's) problems were due to them li'l pieces of paper. To me, I doodled on a helluva lot of the same stuff everyday and nobody seemed to think that was very valuable! But some funky designs and some colour et voila! It suddenly become worth killing for.

So Amma sort of encouraged me to go on and see where this line of reasoning took me. So I said, if I want a shirt, I should be able to go to the shop and just take one. 'So who will make it?'. The tailor of course! 'And why should he make it?'. Well, he needs some too, and he might as well make one for me. There needn't be any money involved.
'Then what about him and his family? How will he feed and take care of them? He needs things too, just like you.'
I mean, he's a nice guy and all that, and why can't everyone just be nice to each other and give each other things? I can make/do something you can't and vice versa - so I'll give you my stuff, and you give me your stuff. It did occur to me at this point that there would, of course, be people (like me) who would just sit there and sponge off the niceness of the others. But it didn't help my argument, so I just kept that pearl of wisdom to meself.

'Hmmm...you've just discovered the barter system'.
Oh yes...! The one used in all the most ancient civilisations. The ones where people were most happy. The ones with, to the best of our knowledge, not much violence. The basic needs taken care of, people had all the time and energy in the world to think, create, invent, reinvent. Damn, they had the right idea!
And some dam phool (like in the Chlormint ad) went and thought up money. Just because 5 goats didn't exactly add up to the village hottie. Well, maybe some Kiwis or Irishmen would be ok with that concept, but I digress.

Dreams, and nice ones at that, come easily at that age. I thought I was just gonna have a li'l tete-a-tete with our man in that big white church, and it would all be sorted out. I was going to be the father of a goddamn new world order. No more money. You want it, you got it. I was going to...

And then it struck me - Damn. This is going to take a while.

And I need my free packet of Phantom Sweet Cigarettes NOW!
Damn.
Plan B.