argia.eus
INPRIMATU
THE GREAT MOMENTS OF HUMANITY
Currency
Aritz Galarraga @aritzgalarraga 2021eko irailaren 21a

A thought that is imposing on me in recent times: money is not important. Or what's the same, money doesn't matter to me. Even their existence is utterly annoying. Well, more than benefits, it causes me discomfort. I mean, if it didn't exist, better. And talking about money will be taboo, but it can be said that money talks about us, which defines how we use it. I'm not a compulsive gastor a pathological saver. No intercalations. No. Indifference is total. If I have enough to cover the most basic day-to-day needs, and all right, to buy a book from time to time, go ahead. In this sense, I say a little envy to the protagonist of the novel Money by Martin Amis, Jon Nerón: he has many addictions, drink, tobacco, fast food, pornography, but above all money is his main drug.

David Graeber tells us that from the very beginning there is credit, debt, money. And perhaps there is no more effective means for exchange – and in this case my problem would be not so much money, but exchange with other people. And maybe the problem is the over-raising of money, praise, divinization, placement at the center of interactions -- and so I would regain some faith in interaction and look for something else. For sure, a distrust in St. Augustine, who is rich, or is a thief, or the son of the thieves. Ambrose Bierc has another definition: “Lazy, who manages the goods of the incapable, of the neighbours, of the envious and of the unfortunate” – and, as I am not rich, I would like to know which of these categories, or how many I put myself in. I mean, it's easier to pass the camel through the eye of the needle than to put the rich in my kingdom. On the contrary, it seems to me that all people have their material needs met, not to say the only main task of politics.