Genius of Money - Post III - Interview with Wangari Maathai

I am deeply moved by her endeavor, which pursues to endorse the power of planting trees. At the beginning, she simply wanted a viable solution to resolve the soil erosion issue while generating new sources of firewood for the local residents. However, the simple act of planting trees surprisingly evolves into a political movement when the government came to intervene, escalating the thinking of environmental concerns officially into a protest against the government.

Wangari therefore realizes that the environment sphere is closely linked with other spheres such as economics, politics, cultures, and spirits. I never imagined how difficult planting trees could be. In Kenya, it requires a license to plant trees and there is a complicated administrative process to go through. Wangari, faced with all the challenges from the external institutions such as the local government and the internal insecure forces such as such local leaders of schemes, managed to get through and made the entire world heard her declaration.  

No matter what kind of circumstance one is in, I guess there is always one thing to keep in mind, as stated by Wangari, “if I’m only a drop, I want to be a full and effective drop”.

Genius of Money - Post II - Chapter 7

In this chapter, the author discusses the value of cultural experiences. Every time individuals attends cultural events such concerts, music festivals, and shows, they pay for a certain amount of fee to get the right to be present, but the fee they paid does not guarantee them to witness brilliant performances. However, the experience, in a sense, is invaluable, because it is transpersonal, which will become part of the witnesses.

The same argument also applies in the realms of reading and education. Someone once asks a wise man why people still read books even knowing that they are going to forget what’s being told in the books anyway. The wise man answers that they are not going to remember the specifics of stories indeed, but the story already becomes a part of who they are. It’s the reading experience that gradually cultivates how they think and who they become eventually. As regard to education, educators say education is what’s still left inside people, after they don’t remember anything in the textbooks.

Summary of the Genius of Money for Chapter 9 &14 from part 1

Chapter 9

This chapter focuses on the relationship between money and death. It introduces the topic by focusing on a painting, the Dance of Death, portrayed by a German artist, Hans Holbein. The picture depicts a man sitting in a cell-like room with the wealth he accumulated his entire life. Next to him sits a skeleton, which represents the death itself.  The image aims at showing spectators human’s connection/relationship with money, death’s appearance, and the death process.

Greediness leads to people’s insatiable appetite for wealth so as to seek seemingly eternal security for themselves. However, it is the very same act that destructs their life because they are exposed vulnerably to variations due to the belief that that simply having money on their hands and/or in their safety box would ensure absolute security and save them from death. Death, in a sense, is no longer a biological transition that people undergo, but more accurately, a lessen that enlightens people so that they could be more sympathetic with their real needs and return balance to that human sense of well-being.

Chapter 14 
In this chapter, the author introduces two metaphors - labyrinth and touchstone - to illustrate the functionality of money in the modern society. Even though these two items seem far-fetched, the writer made a strong case by discovering the rule that they both connect the visible world and invisible world. Coincidentally, this particular trait also exhibits itself in the medium of money. Money expresses a social technology which makes the invisible visible by quantify the value of material goods. It is also linked to human’s material needs and participation in economic life, which can also be taken as a reference to the human experiences itself, a journey about self-exploration, similar to the purpose of labyrinth. 


Yet, money has changed in recent years and has become much less connected to the human experience as exemplified by the touchstone and the labyrinth. It has essentially jettisoned all physicality and been reduced to electronic forms such as credit cards and electronic purses.  As a result, money, as a medium of exchange, gradually loses its function of making the invisible visible. Touchstone is no longer needed to measure the quality of coins; the physical journey with the iconic exchange of paper money becomes extinct. However, the author argues, the essence of the labyrinth journey remains, but just chooses to manifest itself in a different form. Given that the moment of purchase could be almost simultaneous with the thought of the purchase in the human brain, the spiritual self - desires and needs - will be completely visible in the economic self that buys, sells, invests, and gives, which corresponds to an old saying that “we are what we do”. 

A Passionate Explorer

I went sailing today. It has been a long time for me to wake up early in the morning. However, in order to participate in the sailing class, which takes place from 9am-12pm, I was able to get up at 8am today, so I am extremely happy about my decision, which made the extra four hours possible.

My friend and I never tried sailing before, so it was a refreshing experience.  We met our coach in the register office and his name is Sasha. Sasha dressed very professionally and looked absolutely serious to me at the first sight. I was having a muffin and a cup of coffee in the register office when we met and he started to say that the class is probably never going to take place since I’ve been eating. I was shocked and then I realize he was joking.

Then we went to the sailing boat, which was parked at the dock. The boat is quite small and is of about 20 feet, but it’s certainly sufficient to take 3 people and navigate the unknown.

Sasha introduced us to the terminologies used on the boat and the names of different objects. For instance, he told us that the right hand side of the boat is called starboard, and the left is called port, so it’s easier for sailors to communicate efficiently.

Following the instructions, we immediately raised the major sheet and went into the open sea, trying to operate the sailing boat solely depending wind. In fact, we didn’t seem harvest huge winds at the beginning. However, we were able to gather some winds when we had sailed very far away from shore side.

It was a fascinating experience. I am glad that I was able to try something new every week and meet people with different backgrounds. It’s always inspiring.  I learned the basic sailing skills and met Sasha, an experienced and passionate sailor. Sasha, even at the age of 72, sailed in the ocean with his friends from Spain to Catalina islands, which took him a couple of weeks. To me, it’s quite an adventure.

I’m not sure if I can do the same thing when I get to age of 72, but one thing for sure is that I want to remain passionate and never be afraid of exploring new things.

Growing a Farmer - Comment 2

With the desire to seek more detailed methodologies of raising livestock and how Kurt eventually enjoys his fruit, I read the other half of the book during a sunny weekend in company with a cup of Grande latte and some jazz.

The second half book serves as a continuation of the previous one, which shifts the focus from crops to more humane objects – livestock. Kurt talks about the specifics of raising fowl, pigs, and cows. He also confesses his feelings when butchering the animals that are raised by him.

This is an interesting part of the story. When farmers eat the crops they raise, they are happy and satisfied since they achieve self-sufficiency as they are feeding themselves with food collected from their own farms. However, when it comes to livestock, more nuances arise due to the fact that these livestock connects with human to a deeper level, especially pigs. Kurt himself mentions this in the book that he feels pigs are thinking when he looks at them. Kurt spends a long time contemplating whether to kill the pigs or not since he does not to feed himself with the pigs and is capable of thinking more rationally as hunger is no longer a burning factor pushing him to take an immediate action. Although it takes a long time, Kurt eventually decides to butcher the pigs, coming to another level of understanding of the rules and logic of nature, which he seeks to unravel from the very beginning.

At the very end the book, Kurt starts to serve his guests and himself with food strictly from the farm - the cheese, the meal, and the meat. While they are enjoying the feast, they also start to discover the connections they have with the land, the climate, and the nature.

The author also points out that the food only reflects the essence of his own farm, which to himself, means self-sufficiency, despite of the implications that the food could be dull due to lack of diversity. However, he therefore reinterprets his relationships with the nature and regains his identity as the descendant of the land.

In a modern society today, I agree with the author that it’s necessary to discern the relationships that human beings have with nature and the urgency to reach a peaceful mindset, to embrace nature, and to create our own self-sufficient life. However, the sign of a more civilized society is that everyone engages in more specific and sophisticated work, therefore allowing more technological breakthroughs to take place and the society to move forward. This division of functions also means individuals are given the opportunity to taste a broader spectrum of food.

People no longer need to live like Robinson, who raises all the crops and livestock on a barren island, thusly they are liberated to engage in more meaningful activities and to build more holistic experience. I am sure the guests Kurt invited go to other styles of restaurants on the other days. Still, we should celebrate Kurt’s self-sufficiency while keeping in mind that there are myriad of avenues to get there.