Roommate Rants about Money

Money. In today's world, it is the driving force of life. It's an absolute. You need it. You must have it. Some people desire it and some people downright loath it. My roommate favors the latter. He absolutely despises money.

I am convinced he is a living John Lennon for all the times he preaches about the downfalls of society and problems with wealth and possessions. He believes money shouldn't exist and that humanity was not meant to spend endless amounts of time trying to earn the extra dollar in order to survive or even get what you want.

So, now that you have a little bit of the background, I'll dive into the crux of the story. (Although there's a whole lot more to the story. Hell, I could probably write a short book on this particular subject, but for now, I will spare you the details.)

My roommate works in the restaurant business as a server/waiter (or slave to 'every walk in life' as he would put it). He leaves work after a long, hard day of the normal bull crap that goes along with the job. He argues with the cooks, bitches about management, and stays way longer than he ever intended to. So pretty much he's having a bad day which happens to be the case everyday. Here's where the story of the roommate rant about money begins.

So, he walks into the room and says to me with a straight face, "You know that whole money shit that I keep talking to you about?"

I nod, half listening.

He continues, looking somewhat pissed off, "Let's burn it."

My response, "What?" (He had my full attention)

He nods with conviction. "Yeah, man. I'm sick of it! Money is worthless! I hate having to work for it every 'gd' day. It's a waste of life. God, I hate money. Let's burn all the money to the ground!"

I shrug, thinking it's just another ridiculous rant but I throw him a bone. "All right, and how do you suppose you're gonna to do that?"

"I'm going to go down to the U.S. treasury and burn every last dollar. God, I'm sick of this f-ing shit! Tell that to your precious hubpages! Write a hub about that!" he yelled. (And so I did...haha)

I laugh, now he is just going ballistic! And I ask, "Ahhh...All right...let's say you burn all the money in the world...what then?"

"Then what? If you burn all the money then no one will have to worry about it, that's what. We start fresh. Our purpose will be focused on the good of mankind."

I nod with a hint of a sarcastic tone. "Bold. What are we Star Trek all of a sudden? Where money doesn't exist?"

"Why not?" He asks. "Why not."

Crazy, innovative, not really original. We've heard it before with John Lennon's Imagine, but my roommate does bring up an interesting point. What if money didn't exist? Would we be less civilized? Certainly some would theorize that such a global economic meltdown would cause the most powerful nations to falter into a third world type society with nothing to prosper, leaving behind technology and endless amounts of inconveniences. And they "the experts" are probably right.

Unless for some miraculous reason greed and power become insignificant as well. If we just lived to better mankind then imagine what we could accomplish. In a way, money causes poverty. Money causes pain, both directly and indirectly. Money is the reason why the U.S. cannot provide healthcare and education to every single American. Money is the reason why we as humans cannot explore the depths of space or even our own planet! Money is the reason the world has not switched to alternate energy sources over fossil fuels. Money, money, money! Can we live without it? I wonder.