Carefully Think Through Your Relationship With Money

The most difficult thing in life is to know yourself.
- Thales of Miletus, Greek philosopher.

People engaged in unique, creative work need to carefully think through the role of money in their lives.  A lot of important, deeply meaningful work does not pay well. For that work to see the light of day, for it to survive the inevitable resistance, an artist needs to plan for a variety of possible outcomes including financial adversity. But money must serve the work, not the other way around. If the sole purpose of a creative work is to make money, will lack life-giving energy. Good decisions allow us to live our “inner music.” Poor decisions lead to a life of “quiet desperation”.

Most men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the
grave with the song still in them.
-        Henry David Thoreau, Walden

I’ve known people who have become highly successful in business but who remain unhappy. Grim people who strive for respect and status among their peers, but whose main issue is a lack of self-respect. And I’ve known people who live in poverty and are similarly unhappy. Money is not the problem but is rather a symptom of the problem, namely living out of sync with one’s dreams, one’s inner beauty and source of peace, one’s inner song.

Wealth without harmony with your inner world is not success. If you live your life believing that money is negative, you similarly will be unable to sing your song, to create out of the beauty within. We can’t base our lives on a negative and create work that contributes something positive and uplifting to others. That which does not have, cannot give.

The documentary “Metallica: Some Kind Of Monster” follows the hard metal band through the creation of the album St. Anger, which took two years to complete. Their first album was recorded in one day. Money, success can inhibit the creative process. The early days of a creative career require a faith that transcends reality more than it requires money. That energy though is difficult to maintain over decades, though not impossible. Picasso did it despite considerable financial success. Perhaps the outcome is determined by the artist’s knowledge of himself or herself, and the resulting relationship with who they actually are, beneath everything. It seems to me, at the age of 66, that much depends on our self-knowledge. I read about people who somehow acquired that knowledge easily. I don’t know them. It hasn’t for me, or for almost everyone I’ve known in life.

In addition to money, think through your relationship with risk. I love risk. At times my life has appeared to be a search for risk. But risk adds stress. That has been a problem in my life. I now meditate on how to recreate the times of my life that I’ve been happy, content and at peace. Those periods have not been common in my life. An indifference to risk, whether physical or financial risk, is not the same as courage. Courage is about overcoming self-doubt, suspending the imagination. Risk is about engaging with projects that, if they fail, have the potential to set you back years. But you need courage to live life on your own terms. The difference is nuanced but important.

Similarly, the most difficult questions, apparently easy on the surface, are those to do with establishing your objective. America has repeatedly gotten into wars on the other side of the globe, at the cost of tens of thousands of lives of young American soldiers, and trillions of dollars, without clear objectives. These wars were entered into by intelligent, well-educated men, or mostly men. Well-dressed men with great table manners. Generally well-intentioned men. As a result, an estimated 2.45 million people died in Vietnam, and close to 400,000 in Iraq and Afghanistan, most of them innocent women and children. Many more were grievously injured and maimed for life. North Vietnam ended up in control of the south, Iran in control of Iraq and the Taliban in control of Afghanistan. I understand how it can happen. I’ve created a number of messes in my own life. Luckily, they haven’t resulted in the destruction of lives. If I’d had more power, and gone through life with the lack of understanding that I now realize was characteristic of many of the decisions I’ve made and roads I’ve traveled, many more people would likely have suffered.

There’s a single definition of success. Look at yourself in the mirror, in the evening, and wonder if you would disappoint the person you were at eighteen. Before you got corrupted by life. Let him or her be the only judge. Not your reputation. Not your wealth. Not your standing in the community. Not the decorations on your lapel.
     If you do not feel ashamed, then you are successful. All other definitions of success are fragile modern constructions.
      - Nassim Taleb - 11 Rules For Life 

I had a better handle on who I was and what I wanted out of life at the age of fifteen than I had at the age of sixty. I had a better understanding of what brought me inner peace. I have spent substantial portions of my life serving that understanding, in particular on wilderness canoe trips, but also through art and writing. But I’ve also spent very substantial periods of time, decades in fact, chasing dreams and poorly understood fictions that had nothing whatsoever to do with what brings me peace. Some of that is no doubt an attraction to extreme challenge, to unpredictability, and an interior restlessness that is often difficult to control, to harness. 

. . . it is easier to sail many thousand miles through cold and storm and cannibals, in a government ship, with five hundred men and boys to assist one, than it is to explore the private sea, the Atlantic and Pacific Ocean, of one's being alone.

"Erret, et extremos alter scrutetur Iberos.
Plus habet hic vitae, plus habet ille viae."

Let them wander and scrutinize the outlandish Australians.
I have more of God, they more of the road.
- Henry David Thoreau, Walden, “Conclusion,” 1854

 I have experienced a lot of both the road and God. I have regrets. There is a price to a life lived at extremes, a life of experiments. On the other hand, my path, however twisted and convoluted, has given me insights into life, into myself, that I could have gotten no other way. In that sense, I’ve traveled the roads I need to travel in order to have something to share with others. I’m where I need to be to pursue the ultimate art, the art of a well-lived life. We probably all wish our lives were easier, including the King of England. Apparently though, “easy” is not what life is about.

Knowing others is intelligence;
knowing yourself is true wisdom.
Mastering others is strength;
mastering yourself is true power.
-        Lao-Tzu, from the Tao Te Ching 

Our relationship with money, and all relationships in our lives, are determined by the depth and accuracy of our understanding of what we want out of life, of who we are. To the extent that our understanding is reasonably complete, which is by no means easy, money will serve that understanding, and in an effective way.

More on this subject in the chapter Maintain A Strategic Reserve.