I was watching an interview with Gene Simmons, the front man for Kiss, and he was asked if there was anything money couldn’t buy. He said no, even going as far as to say money can buy God. Well I’m not going to go on about how God is free and that even the very impoverished can afford him. What got me about what he said is how limited his thinking was. Maybe it because I’m anthropology major, I can point out just how wrong Simmons is. He, like so many, forgets that money is a relatively new thing considering how old the world is, and still today there are cultures that don’t use monetary funds for their day to day survival. The world hasn’t always been the way we see it, and it won’t always be.
But Gene can’t imagine a world without money for two reasons. Most people cannot see past what they already know and experience. They rely on what the taste, feel, hear, and touch in the moment to make judgments and choices for their tomorrow. For Gene, money is something very real to him, he knows it well and so to imagine a world without it is nearly impossible for him. Another reason is, it is his motivator.
We move through life and make decisions based on our own personal motivators. If you want admiration, you will look for opportunities that will grant you that. If you seek pity, you will make decisions based on that motive. Gene likes, wants, and feels he needs money. He’s seen what money can give him. He knows without it he wouldn’t have the life he has now, and thus all his major decisions go back to the central influence of money.
He is right in some respect, the culture he lives in and has witnessed surrounds itself with the notion of money. Survival is highly based on having more than enough, because he cannot buy food, clothes, medication or a home to live in without money. And he knows in order to get the best of those things he needs a fair bit of it. But he doesn’t see that he is limiting himself to one form of survival and he cannot see the world for more than merely himself. He thinks, my life is good because I have a lot of money, so everyone needs a lot of it in order to have a good life. He cannot even fathom that life and the world is more than he knows it.
Gene has a case of pride. When you don’t look outside yourself and your own life experiences to judge the world that is exactly what you have. And pride is forever limiting because it keeps us from experiencing the world fully. It keeps us from entertaining different thoughts. And it keeps us from connecting to our soul and the souls around us.
For mister Simmons, here are some things money can’t buy
1. You can buy a great councilor, but you can’t buy the fear and anxiety away
2. You can buy a good education. but you can’t buy the ambition to get good grades
3. You can buy a good bed, but you can’t buy a good night’s sleep
4. You can buy medication, but you can’t buy pain away.
5. You can buy an antiaging product, but you can’t buy youth.
6. You can buy good grades, but you can’t buy wisdom
7. No one can buy their way into heaven, because no one truly knows what it takes to get there.
8. You can buy someone’s attention, but you can’t buy their love.
9. You can buy beauty, but you can’t buy self esteem
10. You can buy better health, but you can’t buy immortality.
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