Money

[fajrdrako]

Just for the heck of it, I went to the Daily Zen question.

"Two Questions today... about money.... Would you give up one year of your life for 1 million dollars? You would have to spend one year in prison, for each million dollars that you would receive. You would have to start your prison time today How many years would you give up? If any."

This is easy. None. What's the point of trading life for money? You can't buy and sell suffering. Or freedom. It isn't even a little bit tempting. This seems to me like one of those really life-destroying ideas: I'd end up bitter and unhappy (give me, say, two weeks for that) and wealthy or not, life wouldn't be worth living. Nope, my freedom and happiness are worth a lot more than cold cash. You'd have to bribe me with something really worthwhile. World peace, for example. A cure for cancer. Extraterrestrial travel.

If that all sounds too altruistic, you could tempt me by offering something I really want - say, Mal Reynolds in my bed. I'd have to think about that.

"What if you just could take one year off of the end of your life? Instead of living to 89 years old.. you only live to 88. Would you do that for $1million per year?"

This was a little more tempting. It doesn't involve suffering. I would certainly like to try living with the problems of wealth rather than the problems of poverty. But all the same... it sounds like a bad trade, it sounds an awful lot like giving something valuable (life) for something with no intrinsic value in itself (money). By which I mean, you can't eat money, you can't cure illness with money, you can't use money to get story ideas. I could maybe use it to share - that might be fun - not just obvious things like feeding hungry kids and founding alternative schools and backing AIDS research and so on - but I could go see Egypt with my friends, which I'd so love to do.

But it would be frustrating, too. I could feed some hungry kids in Ottawa, maybe, but what about the whole of Somalia? Okay, maybe doing limited good would be enough, but.... I'd rather earn the trip to Egypt legitimately somehow.

In any case, it feels as if it would be selling my self-respect, and therefore I won't do it.

Perhaps we could negotiate on this sex-with-Mal-Reynolds option?

Comments

[catch-the-wind.livejournal.com]

Very interesting.
I think In all honesty my answer would be yes to both. You have to understand though that I am speaking as a person who at the moment could really do with some money. I owe the student loan company £10,000. I know I don't have to pay it back until I start earning but it is still a lot of money to be over my head.
There is also the fact that I would love to do an MA in contemporary film and literature. Sadly that is a further £4000. It will take me a long time to save up. By sacrificing a year of my life either before or after I feel it would mean I could get things started. Right now my lack of funds has me in limbo.
£1 million and I would be a lot closer to my goal. Masters followed by Phd and then onto lecturing.
The only catch would be if you ended up with a criminal record relating to the year in the clink.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

I was in debt till a few years ago, and if I were still in debt, my answer might be different. Being out of debt gives a person independence and freedom. Admittedly, I would like to be able to afford a PhD.; perhaps my level of ambition has changed from what it once was, because obviously my priorities are different now.

Interesting answer!